Call of Duty 4 is a really well designed game. The one thing I admire most about it is that the whole game makes sense. Where most games take shortcuts with logic — why can you open any locked container in Mass Effect by playing a short game of Simon Says? — CoD4 stays grounded in reality for the whole thing. The whole experience is consistent.
I believe that’s an important next step for games: making sense. Gamers are used to the inconsistency of game, but non players are often put off my the abstraction of games. The closer a game behaves to what the player expects, the less has to be explained to play. The purpose of a machine gun is obvious, whereas the purpose of an alien gun in a sci-fi shooter needs more explanation. Very little context is needed for the action in CoD4 because the action is close to something players already know (soldiers in the Middle East).
“Making sense” doesn’t mean that the game has to be realistic. A very stylish game can be consistent, credible and close to the reality the audience is familiar with. What’s important is that things behave in a believable way, in a way that fits logically with the game world. The logic of CoD4 is not the same as the logic of a Looney Tunes cartoon, yet Bugs Bunny acts in a way that fits perfectly well with his cartoon world.
So ask yourself: how can you make your game more logical and consistent? How can you remove the abstractions that might put gamers off?