[ido]

    Don't you see a pattern around first person shooters, real life 
    'simulators' built on repetitive OCD grind, and a general sense 
    of sameness?

In short, no. There were >19,000 games released on steam this year alone in all possible genres (most of them not FPSs or simulators). Even if 90% are "bad" (because 90% of anything is bad) the top 10% (1,900) still span every possible genre including many that didn't exist in the 80s. I suggest that if you're truly interested in finding some modern gems that you try to search for communities that revolve around your interests (for example on reddit).

[mancerayder]

How many of those are puzzle-based classical Adventure Games like the recent Lucy dreaming?

Many of the genres are baloney, at least the stuff that comes back in search results as recent - it's all Work Simulator, a slow grind, the ubiquitous first person shooter, horror or everyone's favorite hack and slash genre.

We're drowning in numbers, is all you're really telling me.

[ido]

It’s not a genre I care about so I don’t know. What I’m saying is that discoverability is bad but the supply is there. You need to work to find it. I find the games I like most via recommendations on genre-specific subreddits and discord servers.