Here's the problem with video games... When we were kids, and it was still "fresh and cool", none of us had the money for good hardware..
Now that we're older and have money for good hardware,, the games are played out, and we've been around the block too many times with the same call of duty rehashes...
Back when we were kids, you had to keep upgrading just to keep the computer working at a decent pace. It's only recently that the hardware truly outran the software. 15 years ago a 2 year old processor was absolutely worthless for gaming, today, you can game on a 6 or 7 year old processor without much trouble.
Overclocking and high end cooling was a way to leapfrog the upgrade cycles. Back then a small boost represented a big gain, a 133mhz increase on a p3 1000mhz was equal to a 13% increase and it was simple and easy to do as there were no locks on multipliers and such. Today, you need nearly 4 times that just to get 10%, in an era where overclocking simply isn't as easy to do (in general) with various locks, more and more built in features and processors pushing up against more and more barriers. Today overclocking can give you a small bump, but it's not going to do nearly what overclocking could do for you back then.
There is also something in the fact that processors are no longer the most important part now that they have gotten so fast. Any low end AMD will handle pretty much any game, and even mid line AMD processors with built in graphics can play most common games.
The hardware has simply outpaced the software (finally).
quit looking at AAA titles, there are so many indie games that are tailored to damn near everyone. People who com pain about games being bad aren't playing the right games 
Some of my Favs from 2012: Hotline Miami, DayZ, Borderlands 2, and that new Need For Speed game.
Generalizing all games as crappy based of rehashes year after year is just ignorant.
Half of those you mentioned are rehashes.
I agree with both of you to some extent though.
Borderlands 2, and Left4Dead 2, are fantastic games that I play a lot of. I also played a lot of COD4 back when it was new, and BF2 as well.
However, we have lost quite a bit of variety to some extent at the same time. Too many smaller game companies were swallowed up and are scared to take risks that they used to. The big game companies are following Hollywood's pattern of spending big bucks on blockbusters which rely solely on a formula that they think/know will sell.
Take Borderlands 2, can you imagine trying to sell that to EA or Sony without the success of BL1 to back it up. The game is pretty wild and crazy, and I could see them taking tons of material to make it less controversial (Tiny Tina for example) and be just another good seller. It's the wild and surprising characters like her that spice up the game and make it special, and yet, I could see EA's executives absolutely cringing when they saw her parts. Same with other things like "Shoot me in the face", can you picture Sony going for that?
Unfortunately these mega companies have taken over and really stripped out a lot of innovation. How many Madden games do we really need? Another good example is Red Alert. The original was really innovative, and a bit crazy, part 2 had great gameplay and a good story, part 3, is just meh. It lost that spark because they wouldn't take chances and missed that x factor element. Yes, you can say we had too high of expectations, but at the same time you could point and say it was exactly what we expected. COD4, was totally expected, and yet, it was fantastic and outshined the games before it. Look where that franchise is now, it's become the Madden of military FPS, "buy the latest clone of our last 3 games, now with improved faces!"
Don't get me wrong, innovation is problematic and risky, but many of the big game franchises have turned to a model where they are kicking out new versions just to kick out a new version and make a bundle of money, not because they actually have something new.
Are we average consumers though?
No, in fact far from it.
