I don't see what the problem is with games like Tetris and Bejeweled and Panel de Pon/Puzzle League on the market. They're cheaper game than epic blockbusters and offer non-commiting entertainment that you can pull out for a couple hours to plow through a lunch break or a roadtrip (at least, if the game's portable which they usually are). They have no ending, so I don't feel bad about putting the game down for a couple months and picking it back up. There's always a rush from picking up Tetris after a long hiatus and gawking at my score in the multi-millions and trying to even make it past level 16 when I could previously survive through the level 30s.
You don't need a game to be complex or have and epic story to just be fun and challenging. Nor are these games devoid of originality, because I personally would have never thought of a theme like Plants vs Zombies. They're a great way to pad out boring days when you don't want to commit yourself to anything more complex than pressing two or three buttons.
On the "hardcore" side, I'm a jRPG person and I lament the fact that a lot of developers are sticking to their tired cliche BS stories while tacking on contrived and overly complicated battle systems (NAMCOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!), but the length of the games makes it easy to spread games over a long period of time. With a lull in good releases so far this year bar Strange Journey and Pokemon, it's a good time to check out the PS2's back catalogue of great-but-impossible-to-find-in-retail RPGs like SMT: Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga. And also a good time to build an alter and pray to the gods that Nintendo blesses us with an Earthbound release + Mother 3 someday before the apocalypse.
And at the very least, if I don't feel like diving into an RPG, there's always Bejeweled to mindlessly waste away my whole day. For free, on the internet. Bring it on, casual games, I want to rocket my score into the millions.
