For me it is a bit of a mixed bag. Some things have definitively improved in gaming, user interfaces in old games for example basically range from really bad to unimaginatively horrible (including famous issues such as not being able to use up/down to select your save in Zelda or RTS that don't make proper use of both buttons, X-Wing not giving you separate rudder control, etc.), making it sometimes hard to enjoy older games. In today's games on the other side the user interface is in general rather polished and even a bad interface is generally better then a good one from 15 years ago. Some of that user interface polish however goes to far, for example I am rather tired of cover based third person shooters following always the exact same mechnaics, they work and are fun, but they just get boring when almost every of your games plays kind of the same. A little more experimentation and risk taking, even if it doesn't always pen out, would be welcome.
The overall trend to sequels in todays games however is more then a little annoying and even if there is a new game every once in a while, you can almost be certain that it will be turned into a franchise with multiple sequels, ports and stuff to follow. It is sometimes rather depressing to look through the top10 of a console and basically only see stuff that is in its fourth or fifths iteration. I don't mind a good triology every once in a while, but sometimes they should really put a series to rest and move on. I really don't need series that run for 15 years spanning all kinds of different platforms.
Another thing that bothers me is that some limitations are still there. Why for example do we still have invisible walls in games? I can understand when my Amiga had to cheat around, I can much less understand it when a Playstation 3 has to do it. Ironically, Amiga or early PC games often offered more freedom, for example you won't really find an invisible wall in your old school flightsim, yet many modern ones have them. This applies to many issues, same with time-limited replays. My C64 had limited memory, so replay in a soccer game was limited, but why dose GRID have such a short limited replay? Why don't you have more camera control in that game? By today such limitations really shouldn't exist and they should be basically on every developers "Things I must fix before I release" list.
One of the biggest issues with todays games for me is probably the lack of progress in what I would call "interactive complexity". Take an old adventure game, you could pick up stuff, could use it, talk to people, etc. Yet in many modern games you are basically limited to shooting people in the face. Even in RPGs that allow you do to some more stuff, you are basically limited to the same things you could do some 10 or 15 years ago. A dialog tree today is still pretty much the same thing as dialog tree 15 years ago. Things like freeform dialog have existed to some extend in text adventures for quite a while and in other more experimental games such as Facade or Storytron, but that stuff really never made it into today mainstream gaming. This issues extends of course to basically all scripted events, you can literally look at SCUMM scripting from back in 1987 and compare it to your latest Uncharted2 and it is pretty much the exact same thing, a few minor syntax changes aside. By today we really should have proper AI to drive our dynamic NPCs, not the static "if condition() then play_animation()" style of scripting. Of course there are a few games that try, but those hardly reach anything one could call satisfying results.
Then there are also some gaming trends that have reached a tend end. The good old VR helmets for example, they where kind of a big deal 15 years ago, but then just fade away never to be seen again. Today it should be possible to build those things much less bulky, with better resolution and solid head tracking, yet we don't see those things, instead we get stereoscopic 3D, which by the way also already existed 15 years ago, so its not exactly a new thing.
The mystery in games has also faded away with walk throughs and FAQs easily available. Even the most obscure glitch is now well documented in some Youtube video, while back then it was all a lot more driven by rumors and you might have to wait months to get your hands at a walkthrough, if you got one at all. That made even simple games feel a lot more interesting then they really where. But of course it is a trade off, while lack of easy available FAQs added mystery, being stuck on some issue for month wasn't fun. So I'll probably prefer things today and there is always the option to not peek at walkthrough.
Overall I am happy with todays games, but the lack of new things or at least different things can be annoying. If I want the best space sim available, jump'n run, mech sim or the best adventure I'd have to pick a game that is at least a decade old if not more, as those kinds of games is hardly made anymore. Now those genre are of course nothing "new" by the hard definition of the word, but a genre that hasn't been in used for 10 years, certainly feels a lot more interesting then yet another third person shooter.
For now I better end it, its already kind of tl;dr.
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