I found this interview with Johnathon Blow to be very interesting for a couple of reasons. But the part I found most interesting, is the section about games that respect the players intelligence and time. This starts around 4:02, in the video.
He singles out Japanese games a little, but I wasn't wanting that to be the focus of the discussion.
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I wanted to discuss games that treat players as if they're intelligent. Games that don't constantly hold your hand and allow you to discover things for yourself. I think that just recently, a game like Journey is a great example. You learn the fundamentals simply by playing and experimenting. I appreciate that not every game can afford to do this, of course. I think an MMO or Flight Simulator, without tutorials and explanations would be disastrous. But I think for genres like Adventure games or Horrors, it's important.
Discuss away. What modern games do think are the best examples? What games do you think are the worst?