Don't you see a pattern around first person shooters, real life
'simulators' built on repetitive OCD grind, and a general sense
of sameness?
In short, no. There were >19,000 games released on steam this year alone in all possible genres (most of them not FPSs or simulators). Even if 90% are "bad" (because 90% of anything is bad) the top 10% (1,900) still span every possible genre including many that didn't exist in the 80s. I suggest that if you're truly interested in finding some modern gems that you try to search for communities that revolve around your interests (for example on reddit).
How many of those are puzzle-based classical Adventure Games like the recent Lucy dreaming?
Many of the genres are baloney, at least the stuff that comes back in search results as recent - it's all Work Simulator, a slow grind, the ubiquitous first person shooter, horror or everyone's favorite hack and slash genre.
We're drowning in numbers, is all you're really telling me.
It’s not a genre I care about so I don’t know. What I’m saying is that discoverability is bad but the supply is there. You need to work to find it. I find the games I like most via recommendations on genre-specific subreddits and discord servers.
