MW3 you manage to shoot down half the Russian army pretty much by yourself (and they almost line up to let you do so)
Bioshock where you slaughter hundreds of opponents pretty much the same way and literally murder children to get further in the game.
Bullet Sponge player characters in all these games when a single bullet in reallife usually takes you out of the action.
You would think they could come up with alternatives to make the games less a slaughterhouse and more varied ("you kill one russian soldier/splicer youv'e killed them all".)
You can still spectacularly blow things up in various creative ways. The guns can still go bang bang and things kaboom with glitzy special effects.
Wouldnt making your enemy take to their heels and not stop running be a similar ego boost for the player? Still count as 'beaten' ?
How about clever distractions/blocking an enemy to nullify them?
More wounding and disabling instead of an obvious "he's dead jim" ?
Or is it just 'too hard' for these game companies who use nealy the same game logic as 10-15 years ago on the same old trigger box choreographed terrain situations. Too much budget for fancy scenery/special effects/cutscenes, when the behaviors (and game mechanics of possible actions) are left in their 'good enuf' stagnation?
SO what else can we have the players/game do ?
More capturing enemies (get points for that) and Incompacitation is what counts.
More enemies that run away/surrender (with a few that might come back so you better keep your eyes open)
More effects of wounds on YOU to shift the way you have to fight (ditto for enemy)
More actions to cause distractions/obscuration/blockage of the enemy to handle them (and they do the same to you making you use the terrain on-the-fly more)
More obvious wounding (instead of death) that you know they are out of the fight
More emphasis on the objective rather than bodycout for scoring
More interesting results that can suprise the player (quality over quantity of deathdealing)
More tactics/actions to handle situations (may have to have player fed directions from 'sarge' to clue them in to what they can do for a situation instead of 'scream and charge' like they were bulletproof.)
Things that stand in the way of improvements:
Players who dont want to have to think
Costly programming/assets that eat into the profits when the suckers keep buying the same old thing anyway
Steeper learning curve for more options/actions to use them right
Chronic mentality of Ego and Insta-gratification
Harder to make a game free flowing (well short of a stealth game)