I really liked the way valve did HL2. Jobabob, im surprised you didn't realise this.
The games story telling is crafted so you get what you need and can keep killing stuff if your a pure action junkie. or you can look around, look at the bulliten boards, read the newspaper clipings, everythings there if you feel you need to have a little more plot to reason out this world.
now onto FF.
FF11 is the nobodies FF because no one really has anything to say about it, it really holds the title of "just the next one in the series, nothing to special"
FF10 was pretty bad in comparison with the others, FF10-X2 was a joke.
FF9 was ok, but square was on the decline in terms of gaming making skill.
FF6 and 7 built on the story concept that square had back when it made secret of mana.
FF 4 and 5 were great games for the time and are still really fun to play.
Final Fantiasies 7 and 8 are where Square peaked in its creative out put. FF7 perfected the whole Mako, Mana, lifestream idea from secret of mana and FF6. Sephiroth was an awesome villin/ally(for that 10 seconds he was in the flash back)
FF8 took all the great game design ideas from FF7 and took a really, truely original story. It had the design that you got to fight with you enemy for a while. it had some really, really kick ass FMV's. It had the best sound track i've ever heard in a FF game.
theres still something that makes FF7 better, but I can't place it.