I tend to agree. I don't care for the "generic Hollywood orchestra" style of soundtrack myself. My favourite OSTs are typically from the 32-bit era, where they had better "chiptune" tools (or outright access to real instruments and orchestras) but still with the notion of having memorable composition instead of just bland movie-like scores.
Obviously you can't have, say, blazing rock guitars for something like The Last of Us, but I still feel most AAA games have lacking soundtracks outside of maybe 1 or 2 themes.
Few recent AAA (or AA, at least, non-indie) games these days have soundtracks I'd really call great, and those that do, are typically Japanese games, like Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Monster Hunter, and Dragon's Dogma, plus the Falcom games like Ys and Trails in the Sky (not really AAA but not indie either). There are exceptions, though.
Like, The Witcher 3's OST really surprised me. Most of the OST is folk music which fit well and sound good on its own. I think it's also an underused style in game soundtracks (outside of some Japanese games), and way more interesting than "Hollywood score".
Hmm, outside of that I can't think of a recent AAA western game that had an OST I really liked... oh, maybe Rayman Legends! Christophe Héral is pretty badass.
I blame it on composers. When the music is good, an orchestra will make it all better (see phoenix Wright), but a lot of orchestral themes these days are boring and uninspired. Most of the times they seem to be there just to add to the "epicness".
Yup.
