I must admit that I had more fun playing games whehn I wasn't a developer. It's hard for me to not play games with "analysis mode" switched on in my head.
I could list my favorite advenure games here (DOTT leads the list), but I think the games that impressed me most recently are Half-Life 2 and GTA:SA.
For very different reasons of course, and I cannot say I like what these game are about or what they have to say -- they are interesting because they create very interactive worlds.
That's something we should aim to translate to adventure games.