compeltely agree, i feel like more and more games are forgetting to find an actual game. they combine some mix of achievement/gameplay loop and story or account progression and keep you busy feeling like youre still figuring the game out. But i think it is riding on the coattails of great games of the apst that ultimately rewarded players with "end game" experiences after they invest all the time in figuring the game out. Now they only need to be jsut convincing enough that the end game might exist and then never deliver on it, and they get paid and get users but ultimately no one remembers their experience with the game that well, and attitude towards gaming overall takes a hit.

the solution is to get back to identifying what the mechanic (or set of mechanics) actually is that is fun. It should be fun without the loop and then the loop gives you something to optimize and showcase skill. I think of Golf, where the fundamental game is hitting a ball into a cup in the ground. thats a fun way to kill time at the fundamental level for a lot of people. then the gameplay loop comes in for scoring, different courses with obstacles, specific things to hit the ball with, all sorts of things that let you capture the feeling of just hitting the ball with a stick into a cup and add more and more nuance to it which motivates replayability.