I wanted to post something about your talk about 'maturity' in games and being embarrassed to admit you play them. The problem isn't, as Jeff says, that games need more mature characters or storylines. Many games have those things now, but not even a mature storyline can hide the fact that games such as Mass Effect 2, Red dead redemption, Alan Wake, etc are essentially about shooting people in the head - and that is a very juvenile kind of kick.

Games that I'm not embarrasssed to admit I like are things like Limbo, Mirror's Edge, Heavy Rain, and Braid, because the experience of actually playing them is a deeper, more intellectual experience. So long as most games base gameplay involves playing with guns and nerdy wish fulfilment, rather than something more ambitious, I won't be so proud to call out that I'm a gamer.