I like story-driven games because you know you're moving towards a goal. I like being fed the next cutscene or story exposition. Story-driven also tends to be a lot shorter than open-ended and with my limited time, I have a hope of finishing a game. Open-ended can also be "endless," in that you can go off to your own little corner of the world and do what you will, never finishing the main storyline. I'm not that motivated in the real world, what makes me think I would be in a virtual one?

See, I have a problem with the opposite. I'm still struggling to hold my attention with HL2, but i've been playing Europa Universalis III like i've got a problem.

Looks like someone is trying to get into the podcast.

I prefer semi-open-ended with multiple story lines. Pure story "go here do this" types of games can often lead to getting stuck in one spot which causes many to just abandon the game entirely whereas multiple story lines or open-ended play will often lead players to experience the other aspects of a game and sometimes they eventually come back and get over the hump they experienced.

It depends upon my mood. Like Dhelor, I tend to play games the most that balance a solidly motivating linear-ish story with a lot of optional content. FFXII, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 (not Dark Alliance), and Rogue Galaxy are some perfect examples that I can point to: all of them have a linear plot that serves to push the player forward when they want to know what happens next, but both also have a lot of optional content that comes available the further you get into the game. Oblivion would be another good example, though the main plot hasn't really been a compelling force for me yet (though the Fighter's Guild plot has been; go figure!).

Some games eschew depth of plot, instead using it merely as a tool to help shove you along. Diablo 2 being a prime candidate for me for years; the plot is mostly just there to get you started, but it's the gameplay itself that makes me want to keep playing.

For open-ended titles, it just depends on how fun they are, or how much depth they have. I've played Master of Orion 2 off and on for nearly a decade now. The SimCity games have entertained me for well over a decade. Civ 4 is rock-solid and will be in my rotation for a long time to come. I'm still just barely understanding Europa Universalis 3, but I can see the depth in the game and thus how fun it could be.

But then again, there are some pretty firmly linear games that I can enjoy replaying just for the pleasure of it. The classic Final Fantasy titles from the SNES just never get old for me for some reason, nor does Chrono Trigger. I've replayed A Link to the Past too many times to recall (though that one's more in the camp of the mixture of linear & nonlinear gameplay). Guitar Hero is as linear as a game gets (just a series of "stages" that you replay as much as you want) and I can't even guess how much time I've put into both GH titles.

I dunno; I think it's less a matter of whether the story drives me or not, and more a matter of whether the story and/or gameplay are compelling enough to hold my attention. One can overcome deficiencies on the part of the other, but if both are solid (hello Dragon Quest 8!) then that puts a game right up into the highest echelon of my favorites.

I like story-driven games, because despite all the buzz words, "emergent gameplay" just isn't there yet. Look at Crackdown. You can go anywhere, do anything, etc. etc., but because of that the "plot" is limited entirely to set pieces. There aren't any interesting missions that use some new mechanic or twist, there's just one kind of thing to do, seek and destroy. We saw that kind of thing before in Mercenaries, but that game was much, much more fun, despite being more limited than Crackdown in some ways. Mercenaries had actual missions and a storyline.