I think it's a tiny bit more complicated than that in multiplayer games. When we play games with other people, we expect there to be a limited set of ways we can interact. Those limitations are called rules, and they govern every kind of game people play, from board games to sports to house. In a sport, nobody thinks its weird that the forward in soccer can't pick up the ball with his hands. Those are the rules, and everyone agreed to them before the game started. Verisimilitude is less important in multiplayer.
In a singleplayer game with a narrative, we have to accept the illusion that Gordon Freeman is a person in a world much like our own, except that he can only throw switches, grab objects, and hurt people with weapons.