This has been my experience as well. I am attracted to bringing games into the learning environment because they can offer unique opportunities for action/reaction/reflection (in addition to other benefits) - but I am indeed more interested in complicated decision making rather than simply choosing Red Team v. Blue Team.
For instance, I would love to see a game like "Papers Please" with a stronger element of consequences. Rather than simply being told you allowed a terrorist through the gates (with a brief cut-away) the consequences of this action (deaths, social destabilization, etc.) would impact the future game play. Perhaps, you decide to actively aid and abet these terrorists (by communicating to them that you will allow them and their compatriots to pass through) - but then you put yourself and your loved ones at risk, as well as increase social instability.
This is already a wonderful game, but I would like to see the premise taken even farther. Games could be a wonderful place to consider and critique decision making and moral choices that are analogous to those we face in real life (even if filtered through clearly fictitious events/circumstances).
To the opposite extreme, there's also The Stanley Parable. On the surface it's a humorous narrative seemingly about being a cubicle drone, but it's ultimately about the futility of choice.
The original BioShock was better in going meta on the futility of choice in video games as a medium. You're going to end up doing what the game designer wants you to do. This presumes a game designer has a vision of some sort, of course, but games that don't are either bad or seen as tech demos.
Bioshock Infinite doesn't purport to give the player more than the standard illusion of choice, but I think it's more interesting how choice is handled in the narrative.
The characters think that they're making big, important decisions that reshape their world. It turns out that they weren't really.
I think that this is why the ethics question is ill-formed in video games: it is used as a mean to an end (i.e. what should I do in order to get this). Translated to real life, it results in a quite hypocritical and cynical behaviour (I'm nice in order to get that). Playing with morality implies playing with the players feelings (or rather the player plays with its own feelings), which in turn implies that the game have to build those feelings in the first place.
I can't help but thinking that there should be an AI for this.
Papers Please does that. Depending on how you play the game, multiple different endings are possible. You can choose to assist resistance movements, rebel yourself, etc.
For instance, I would love to see a game like "Papers Please" with a stronger element of consequences. Rather than simply being told you allowed a terrorist through the gates (with a brief cut-away) the consequences of this action (deaths, social destabilization, etc.) would impact the future game play. Perhaps, you decide to actively aid and abet these terrorists (by communicating to them that you will allow them and their compatriots to pass through) - but then you put yourself and your loved ones at risk, as well as increase social instability.
This is already a wonderful game, but I would like to see the premise taken even farther. Games could be a wonderful place to consider and critique decision making and moral choices that are analogous to those we face in real life (even if filtered through clearly fictitious events/circumstances).