The whole time reading this I was thinking, there's more than one kind of game. Even in the space of single player games there are many kinds. Maybe they should try playing a different one. Or maybe Dwarf Fortress will have enough depth.

The point of distilling a story into a loop does resonate though. Think of games made from blockbuster movies which succeed or fail based on the sliver that made it into the loop. I on the other hand love games that I can play for 10-20 mins, then do it again or not. These tend to be PvP games though.