The main problems with FPS games these days are...
1. Linearity. Too many games are on-the-rails linear, with very little freedom of choice in how to get from A to B or how to overcome particular obstacles. When Deus Ex came along, I thought that future FPS games would take note of the great multi-pathway level design and options in how to overcome obstacles - but for some reason these things weren't really adopted.
2. Clone syndrome. We still have to put up with hundreds of enemies who all look the same as each other, and NPCs/allies with little variation between them. Surely it cannot be too difficult to design characters where you can randomise their gear/looks. I recall Soldier Of Fortune 2 had something like this, which helped to make enemies less 'cookie-cutter'. Personally I would rather face a dozen well-designed 'smart' enemies in a level, than pump lead into hordes of enemies who all look and act the same.
3. Crates and barrels. Still the bane of the genre.
4. Indestructable doors/windows/barriers etc. All obviously to keep you within the constraints of the level as designed - but it breaks immersion when you can't jump over a 3 foot high barrier, or break a wooden door, or smash a window to see the room beyond. Level design should be a bit more inventive to overcome these factors.
5. Floating heads. Many modern FPS games still rely on floating heads, ie, you look down and you have no body as if you are essentially a floating head. With graphics becoming ever more realistic - it seems stupid now not to see your character's body. It felt much more immersive in FEAR to see your hands gripping the ladder, and seeing your legs scissor kick opponents. In my view if a game is aiming for greater realism, then a player body is something of a must-have.
6. Weapon loadouts. For the most part we end up with the same lineup of weapons over and over again, always starting with a pistol, then getting a shotgun/rifle, then an MG, then a rocket launcher - all because the enemies are supposed to become more difficult over the course of the game. I'd rather be able to pick the weapons I want to use from the outset - this kind of feature was present in games like Soldier Of Fortune, and most tactical shooters, but most shooters still give you the same tired weapon progression. The other problem is usually the lack of variety or 'interesting' weapons. Unreal and Half-Life included some unusual and interesting weapons to complement the usual types, and it was great fun to experiment with them.
7. Crosshairs. A pet hate of mine, but it seems all modern PC shooters these days come with that horrible huge circular console crosshair. Whatever happened to being able to pick your own type and colour of crosshair - or turn it off completely?
8. Story. More and more games are trying to deliver 'cinematic' experiences, so more and more games are becoming heavily scripted linear experiences. Most stories rely too heavily on old cliches, similar kinds of enemy and an overall plot that was written on the back of a matchbox. There's too much 'me too' going on in the industry - for example, have you noticed the huge number of FPS games now offering 'Modern Warfare' all set in the Middle East? FFS...come up with something original.
9. Poor optimisation and multi-platform development. The PC versions invariably end up as an unoptimised mess complete with unintuitive console-****interfaces. Is it really that hard to include point and click mouse support for menus, advanced options to tweak performance for different configurations of PC hardware, etc.? And why do we end up with that horrible tunnel-vision effect and slow-mo turning suited better to consoles? I tried playing the GRAW demo and it felt like I was moving through molasses and you were permanently 'zoomed in' when looking around. Blech.
10. Enemies...enemies...enemies. Why is it that we invariably battle our way through environments and hardly ever come across neutral people caught in the conflict? The maps always seem to be populated by enemies. There are only a handful of modern games that seem to include ordinary people in the levels, like Half-Life 2, or even Jedi Knight, Unreal and No one Lives Forever. By having ordinary citizens in at least some of the levels, you have opportunities to extend the gameplay to protecting those characters from attack - or letting them die, which then introduces some hard moral choices.
11. Flora and Fauna. By the same token, few shooters include animals of any kind, making the environments seem barren and lifeless. I remember when I played Unreal for the first time and gave a nod of satisfaction at seeing the Nali rabbits, the birds, the fish swimming in the water. They had absolutely nothing to do with the plot, but they helped to bring that world alive and improve the immersion factor immensely. Of course it's dependent on the type of game, but I think more games should include these peripheral life forms to help set the scene.
11. Dumb AI. The enemies still aren't smart enough for the most part. They still tend to stand around or go through the same motions over and over, making them relatively easy to kill. I think a lot more could be done with AI so that enemies actively seek to outflank you, protect themselves from incoming fire, etc., and therefore become tougher to kill. FEAR made some improvements, and even Far Cry had it's moments - I remember a time when I thought I'd cleared out an area, went to progress and got shot in the back by an enemy who had hidden in the shadows and waited.
12. HUDs and hand-holding. Is it me or are HUDs becoming ever more intrusive, ie, taking up too much screen real-estate? In addition there seems to be a bit too much hand-holding going on these days - press button X to do Y. This is obviously a hangover from console games being ported to the PC. Whatever happened to reading the manual, or actually taking notice when you go through an in-game tutorial level, or even...just trying to interact with things yourself? Do we really need to be reminded which button to press EVERY time we can interact with something? Half the fun in older games was stumbling across something that worked when you pressed the 'use' key.
13. Bosses. Do we really need specially-designed levels/chambers for boss encounters? Should we still have boss encounters at all in locked rooms with lots of ammo and health? I mean - it defies logic anyway. The big smart evil bad guy locks himself in a room with you - a room packed with health and ammo only you can use, and that ammo is going to be used against him. Okay. So much for smart enemies.
14. Interaction. Many environments in shooters these days just feel stale and unbelievable because you can't interact with them enough. From indestructable wooden crates, porcelain vases etc., to computers that can never be damaged, doors and windows that can't be broken in spite of the fact you have explosives to hand, lights that can't be shot out or turned off, etc... it goes on and on. Hopefully some of the next gen games like Crysis will start to really address this.
15. Multiplayer. It has to be said - if you are going to include MP with your SP game, for god's sake do something more interesting than Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag game modes, especially considering the wealth of MP only games that do these things a lot better. I would rather a developer spend extra time expanding and improving the SP experience, rather than have some forgettable MP component tacked on that only a handful of people are going to play for a month before switching back to their MP game of choice. All that development time simply goes to waste, and invariably means a game that could have been great turns out to be average.
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