Looking at that list above, and I don't like a lot of those games because so many are WAY too heavily reliant on cut scenes for me. In fact the whole list is pretty poor, and kinda embodies the decline of gaming trends to me, namely cut scene reliance & open world padding.........
The Last of Us - Awful, drudge of a game. Real cumbersome slog to play. You need to care about the characters to enjoy it IMO, and I didn't. I'd have shot the girl in the face & survived by myself given the choice. 1/5
God of War - Not played
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Massively overrated. Assassins Creed Origins done badly, but with great cutscenes. 2/5
Grand Theft Auto V - Uggh God. Crap. The game plays itself. So easy & on rails. Not half the fun of earlier entries like Vice City 1/5
Red Dead Redemption II - Dull as dishwater. Buying sardines, whoopie. Spending hours on end travelling from A to B on horseback, and listening to mundane dialogue. Bleeuuurgghh. 0/5
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Decent. Shallow, cookie cutter, but there's enough in there to at least have some fun with. Nowhere near a GOTD though. 3/5
Horizon Zero Dawn - God it gets worse. Pure embodiment of the rank Open World trend which currently decimates games. An absolute mass of copy-paste nothingness, with no surprises around any corner. 1/5
Bloodborne - I didn't like it. I thought it was a poor man's Dark Souls. But I can appreciate that's largely down to preference of a few more minor details. 2/5
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End - Moments of brilliance, but ultimately too much dull climbing for me to finish. Apart from that brilliant car chase scene, forgettable. 2/5
Marvel’s Spider-Man - Not played
Persona 5 - Not played yet, sat by my PS4 ready for action after Tales of Zesteria is finished.
Dark Souls - Not my favourite in the series, but at last a game which I can genuinely say deserves to be a contender for GOTD. My biggest gripe against it was having to spend too long travelling from bonfire to boss fight, over & over. 4/5
Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Not played
NieR: Automata - Not even as good as it's brilliant predecessor, Nier. Was OK, but the philosophical angle didn't deliver, and again the open world was dull. 3/5
Death Stranding - Not played
Red Dead Redemption - Just as crap as the sequel 0/5
Mass Effect 2 - Decent game, not a patch on ME1, but still plenty to enjoy. What's bizarre is how they focused more on combat, yet the combat is actually pretty crap lol - 3/5
Fortnite - Not played
Batman: Arkham City - Another game which isn't even the best in the series. It was OK, but Asylum & even Origins were way better IMO - 3/5
Resident Evil 2 - Not played
Crikey, there's only 1 game from that list I'd even consider including in a GOTD list, Dark Souls.
Says the guy who has Saints Row 4 as one of his picks.
As far as the games you mention, the one that surprises me the most to see it listed here multiple times is Mass Effect 2. That whole series is slightly above average at best, and I don't think ME 2 is even the best game in the series.
When I think about it, no Bioware game would even come close to making the list for me. It's sad considering how great their games were the previous decade.
Ha, yeah, I THRIVED on SR4
Yeah, agree about ME2. I can't believe it always gets picked out as the best of the series. For me ME1 was miles better. ME2 was still OK, but it was essentially a shooter with cutscenes, where ME1 contained more genuine RPG elements and was just better all round.