This is how I look at it:
If the game I am playing has been hyped up to be the best thing since peanut butter and jelly, it better be around 8 hours long, in the minimum.
Eaxmples of games that did it wrong: Gears of War 1, Halo 2, Resistance 1, Bio-Shock, etc.
Now GoW 2 was longer( I have yet to play Resistance 2 so I couldn't tell ya) and is better.
Nothing pisses me the !@#$% off more than spending $60+ on the "Game of the Year" candidate and the game is over in 2 hours (I'm looking at you !@#$% Resident Evil 5
).
Now, if the game has extra quests, stat crunching, stat building, etc., I have no problem with it and enjoy it.
Oblivion was a game I never got bored with (still have it from the day it came out).
Cool story, but finding items and power leveling your character all different ways and what not made it fun.
You cannot really do that with today's games. That's why I like rpgs because i like to try that one thing that I hope the developers never thought of and try to reach level 100 (pr whatever) in record time. * wish I still had my mem card with FF7 on it with everyone at level 99 in about 18 hours
*
But I love FPS too, and I would love to sit down with a FPS that had a compelling story and just rock on for 30 hours straight. As long as stories keep flowing good, time is of no concern.
*rereads own reply and realizes why he is still a virgin* u_u