Gameplay
Okay, so you have the game looks amazing and the music tickles your soul. What else is there in a game? Well, that would be the gameplay, the interactive part of video games. Without it, you might as well turn the video game into a television show or a movie. After all, gameplay is what puts the "game" in video game.
It would be impossible, I feel, for me to convey my feelings about gameplay with any pictures, sound, or video. I can't reach through the ethers of the Internet and hand you a controller either, so I will have to stick with some generalities in this section.
Gameplay is very dependent on the genre of gaming, so I'll just ignore the fine details. Still, there are a number of things that you should consider. A video game should have an easy-to-navigate interface so that the gamer can concentrate on playing the game itself. The controls should be responsive and, whenever possible, kept simple, so that the challenge comes from the game and not your memorization. If your game is based on real-time, keep the physics and collision detection relevant to the universe. If I had to guess, I would say that this is the most important thing to beta-test for, because anything else in this kind of game is secondary. If your game is turn-based, however, smooth menu navigation becomes even more important. In regards to cutscenes, we now have the technology to skip things, so don't force us to watch it every single time. I don't care how wonderful it is, it gets boring after the 5th time and I'm feeling a little peeved that I couldn't beat that one boss. AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, LOAD TIMES ARE PERHAPS THE BIGGEST KILLERS OF ANY GOOD VIDEO GAME. Seriously, a loading screen is one element that immediately makes us realize that we are in a game and not actually in that world.
So, why did I complain so much in a section about video game appreciation? Well, I want to illustrate to you how rewarding it is for me when I finally do find that one game that balances these things. Like any worthwhile goal in life, sometimes you have to wade through the bad in order to further appreciate the good. This is one of the reasons I read about bad video games: I want to learn what is truly good. Good gameplay makes you feel like one with the game, like it is some extension of your human consciousness. I wish I could express it better or give examples, but, again, I don't think I could express it properly through the tools I have available. Dear reader, you'll just have to take my word for it.