Its also kind of hard to argue that Valve's choice of focusing on online cash cows has come at the expense of their games. I'm sure DOTA2 is a very solid MOBA and all that but I don't see too many people rushing to call it game of the year because outside of the crowd that plays that style of game, it has limited appeal.
Couldn't you say the exact same thing for something like Half Life? Let's say I don't care about single player, story driven games. In that case, Half Life wouldn't interest me in the same way DotA2 doesn't interest you. Every game has "limited appeal" outside those who choose to play them.
For me (and I'd wager a majority of regular gamers) Valve has made exactly one game worth playing in the past few years (Portal 2).
How do you reconcile this belief with the fact that DotA2 is by a huge margin the most popular game on Steam? How do you reconcile this belief with the fact that Valve is expressly telling you the opposite -- that most gamers want these type of multiplayer games, and that Valve are following consumer preference?