On the flip side of that, there are games that can offer you the same quality of a story, spread over a shorter amount of time, like Uncharted, God Of War, Heavy Rain or Assassin’s Creed, in which the “Epicness” of the adventure can be just as great, if not greater, than longer games.

In short, as long as the story gives you a worthwhile and memorable adventure, the length of time required to get there should be irrelevant.

1- alot of work on thier game engine
2- drastic play testing to make sure they work properly
3- put in 5 to 7 hours of single player content in
4- release the game
5- then put out DLC for extra levels/single player content every three to four months
6- get another development team to help you develop DLC
7- get a spare development team to understand code of the game engine before working on DLC
8- dont make a direct sequel unless you find a way to dramatically upgrade the game engine
9- stick with the game you worked on and only focus on patching/firmware/adding DLC on that game

Long games would be Fallout:New Vegas or Mass Effect which draws a rich story line and multiple choices. I’ve always leaned towards these title myself as I feel a greater attachment to the content and the story line. It makes it much more enjoyable when you decide your paths and later have those choices come into question.

COD really should just remove the single player portion all together or just make a movie and get on with it. Short games often utilize repetitive actions or utilize an addictive element to grab the gamers attention really quick. In rare circumstances they also have the player thinking. Which well… COD is more a roller coaster, where you play on rails and sometimes articulate your arms. While its fun, its one of those titles you’ll never really remember.

Then there are still a good many of us that do not even care about multiplayer at all, but we end up paying for it don’t we. I can tell you one thing, when I hear a game has a 5 hr campaign, I do not buy it, period.

Longer games need to have gameplay that does not
be become tideious, so the story can build. Short games
need addictive gameplay that quickly grabs the user.

Obviously these traits are useful for both styles.
A quality game can be short or long.

Now, mind you, this is opinion and I know I am biased to love what I grew up with, and I do not hold Halo to be some paragon of FPS perfection. But I do think there is a virtue in a more succinct story in genre’s like FPS’s that would otherwise have to introduce new and exciting gameplay innovations every hour or so to keep the game fun (and not just interesting, which the HL2 universe did well). Yes, I can already hear the “gravity gun!” and “ant-lion!” calls coming, and a lot of people loved them but I guess I didn’t, which made such segments painful for me and only intensified the stress I already had of spending so much time shooting just to get to hear Alyx explain a scene.

There is definitely opportunity to implement longer stories in other genres, though. While they are often rehashes on the same gameplay and character growth, the Legend of Zelda series almost demands a longer story that makes you feel like you’ve actually put in effort to make your avatar a real hero. Same goes for open-world games like GTA and Morrowind; I’ve probably put over 500 hours into Morrowind and I just started another character up last night, and it is because the gameplay and character development allows the story to be interesting/bearable through extended play time and multiple run-throughs.

I just wish they were priced accordingly.