Is there lack of imagination now in games?

I love playing games with great stories to tell. I just get the feeling that so many new games are just rip offs of others.

Whatever it was. A characters look or style, personality, system mods from entirely different games, story, and graphical style.

These are some of the many things that are being ripped off left and right. I keep getting left with the same stories over and over and many that state that they are completely new end up being to bland to play. Is it just me that feels this way or does it seem that game companies are reusing the things that made their last games great to completely mess up the games of today?

There is no lack of imagination or creativity on the game developers parts.   You are seeing crap being reused left and right because it costs to much money to make games that take any kind of chance.  The people who fund the games who are usually not the developers want a 75% chance or higher that the game will do well.  And the only way they can do that is to base it off crap that has done well in the past. 

Thats also why you only see 5 or less awesome must have games come out a year.   Multiple gaming consoles and pc games that can charge a monthly fee also have to do with the poor selection because developers are majorly split up between platforms.