An excellent article. Only thing I would like to add is that immersion is never total. Player is always aware that he/she is playing a game. In a sense the player is in two worlds at the same time (a) The game world, where he/she is enacting his/her role,
(b) The real world, where he/she knows that it is only a game.
Immersion is also a very personal thing, some people care about immersion and others only see a puzzle to be solved. While playing Drawn, while I could appreciate the art, and the fact that the game had a consistent, internal logic, I wasn't immersed in the game at all. On the other hand, when playing Deus Ex, I was quite taken by the story, but a lot of other players only viewed the game as a puzzle to be figured out.
This study on gamasutra illustrates the point well:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6346/the_user_interface_continuum_a_.php
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