ImmorTall was great when it started. When I walked around like a giant and people came up to me. I just walked and people followed. Then gameplay was introduced. I had to protect the people. Unfortunately it was here that the game became less interesting to me. The gameplay took over, so to speak.
I completely understand your reaction. I have experienced this with so many games! What we want is not very complicated. Why can't they let us play?

Precisely! Sometimes it feels like the developers are just messing with me. "You liked this part of the game, didn't you? Well, too bad, because now you have to shoot a legion of bad guys and collect a million stars and avoid the incoming missiles". Why can't I just walk around looking at the flowers or the rusty sky-line at the horizon?
I think that it, at least partially, has to do with fear. Or perhaps rather a feeling of confusion. We are not used to videogames without the game aspect. We (as game developers) don't know how to act. And so we include gameplay instead of trying, instead of just following our vision, instead of lying out upon 70,000 fathoms of water =)
I did just this in one of my first games. I wanted to make a sad game about the death of the moon and how a small creature tries to save it.
But, I had no gameplay. So I included action-elements in the game. Enemies to be destroyed. When I look at the game today, I wonder why. The gameplay, the killing, does not add to the game. It just ruins the atmosphere.
The game can be found on my homepage if someone wants to try it out (and be frustrated about my gameplay) -
The Night The Moon Decided To Die is the title.