It seems widely acknowledged that Witcher 1 & 2 had some quality points and perhaps good story beats, but it wasn’t until Witcher 3 that everything really came together. I can personally attest to this in that Witcher 2’s tutorial was so bad that I quit then deleted the game.

I’d urge you to reconsider and give it another shot. And I’m the guy that absolutely hates slow or bad beginnings to games (The Order 1886, MGS V). The Witcher 2 does a lot right, arguably even better than TW3. The levels are amazingly detailed and interesting, in particular. Nothing in TW3 quite matches the Flotsam forest.

But Witcher 3? It is probably my pick for “game of the generation” and near the top of my “top games of all time ever” list. If you never played it because the other two didn’t feel right, go and try 3. It’s scope and scale in both it’s world and story are just a bit beyond any other game I’ve played.

Ditto. I suspect that HZD doesn’t feel quite right to me in part because I’m always still thinking about The Witcher 3.

Re: Uncharted, I don’t think that the overall experiences makes up for the weak end of it’s core action experience. I know that this is not the popular opinion. But Uncharted games have never been all that fun to play. The core loop is disappointing, and I don’t think the characters/story/set pieces/etc. make up for it in a way that doesn’t reduce the overall experience. Spec Ops: The Line is a good example of a game that does a lot of things well but has shitty gameplay (by design the gameplay is middling to not detract from the narrative) that does bring down the complete experience.

I mean, I don’t agree with the prior top 3 list. Mostly I think new!TR is a much better overall experience than it iften gets credit for.

I would have to disagree with all three of your examples as being “better series or franchises.”

Mario.
Halo.
Metal Gear Solid.

Can't disagree with that!

But Witcher 3? It is probably my pick for “game of the generation” and near the top of my “top games of all time ever” list. If you never played it because the other two didn’t feel right, go and try 3. It’s scope and scale in both it’s world and story are just a bit beyond any other game I’ve played.

I would have to disagree with all three of your examples as being “better series or franchises.” Tempered that they all have really, really strong aspects to them they aren’t without huge missteps. Dead Space, specifically, had one great game and some passable money-chasing offerings.

Whoah, to say that Dead Space 2 was a "money-chasing offering" is to do a pretty huge disservice to a sequel that did everything a good sequel should. It was bigger, it expanded the gameplay and enemy roster, it explored the world more, and the gameplay itself had waaaaaay less backtracking than the first game, opting for more unique locales and setpieces. I love the first Dead Space (played it religiously, Altman be praised), but even I concede that Dead Space 2 is technically superior on pretty much every level except for horror atmosphere (unless you play it on Hard Core, which caused me so much stress at every single corner).
Sure, the third game was a bit of a letdown, coming off of two amazing games, but it was a great co-op experience.

Even Dead Space: Extraction was a great entry in the Franchise, and that was a rail-shooter.

The Ben Templesmith comics are the only other aspect of the property I would hold up to the level of the first game.

+1 for Templesmith. His art style alone inherently nails the Dead Space atmosphere...

As game series go, I think the quality of the overall packages from TR13 and RotTR are far away better than the overall packages (with exceptions) of most recent series. Obviously, ymmv if you are looking at a specific feature of games where other series excel at the expense of provided a robust experience. And I am definitely looking forward to what Shadow brings to the table. Though as said RotTR had big boots to fill, I don’t think it faultered nearly as much as DS or ME and started on a much higher note than tW.

Maybe, although the same could be said of the Uncharted series, which has always had meh-to-pretty okay controls and gunplay, but nails pretty much everything else, and is a series that has consistently only ever gotten better (as much as people like to hail Uncharted 2 as the series' magnum opus). The overall package totally excuses the often-mediocre gunplay.

As game series go, I think the quality of the overall packages from TR13 and RotTR are far away better than the overall packages (with exceptions) of most recent series. Obviously, ymmv if you are looking at a specific feature of games where other series excel at the expense of provided a robust experience. And I am definitely looking forward to what Shadow brings to the table. Though as said RotTR had big boots to fill, I don’t think it faultered nearly as much as DS or ME and started on a much higher note than tW.

So I just don’t think it’s accurate to tell someone to play Uncharted and/or HZD instead of Tomb Raider, because TR is a very different experience than either of those other games. Plus, it’s possibly the very best version of a modern Metroid-y game that exists.

I didn't tell him to play those instead, just that he should if he considers Tomb Raider one of the "top three game series". It means that he's clearly missing out on easily superior games/franchises (and that's without mentioning something like The Witcher, Dead Space (How's that for Metroid-y?), or Mass Effect).

That said, I played through not just the main RotTR campaign, but every bit of DLC for it, and pretty much everything (except the excellent Baba Yaga DLC) felt like a half-baked and tacked-on experience, and that's without even getting to the microtransaction-based card system. I'm pretty sure I Platinum'd the game, though, so I'm not saying that it was bad, per se, just extremely disappointing after the first game did everything so well. Plus, they butchered Lara's character. She went from determined and increasingly fierce in the first game, to being whiny and having a furrowed brow while she said practically anything. Only a few scenes had some of that "Tomb Raider Lara" from the first game.

Yeah I’m not a particularly big fan of RotTR. There’s lots of great stuff in the game, but that’s because they were coming from an exceptional starting point with the previous game. I don’t think there’s anything about RotTR that was an improvement over TR... everything in the game was on par at best, or a in most cases, a step down to one degree or another.

So I just don’t think it’s accurate to tell someone to play Uncharted and/or HZD instead of Tomb Raider, because TR is a very different experience than either of those other games. Plus, it’s possibly the very best version of a modern Metroid-y game that exists.

I didn't tell him to play those instead, just that he should if he considers Tomb Raider one of the "top three game series". It means that he's clearly missing out on easily superior games/franchises (and that's without mentioning something like The Witcher, Dead Space (How's that for Metroid-y?), or Mass Effect).

That said, I played through not just the main RotTR campaign, but every bit of DLC for it, and pretty much everything (except the excellent Baba Yaga DLC) felt like a half-baked and tacked-on experience, and that's without even getting to the microtransaction-based card system. I'm pretty sure I Platinum'd the game, though, so I'm not saying that it was bad, per se, just extremely disappointing after the first game did everything so well. Plus, they butchered Lara's character. She went from determined and increasingly fierce in the first game, to being whiny and having a furrowed brow while she said practically anything. Only a few scenes had some of that "Tomb Raider Lara" from the first game.

Currently.

Destiny, LIS, Tomb Raider. Those two games were awesome.

I'm all for personal opinions, but... You need to play way more games, man...

Tomb Raider alone:

Better characters and writing? Uncharted series.
Better gameplay, plot, visuals, quests, everything? Horizon Zero Dawn series (I know, one game and a standalone expansion don't make a series, but, it's 2-for-2 on great releases, so...)

That said, while Rise of the Tomb Raider was a fairly big letdown, Tomb Raider was easily one of my favorite games of the last generation, so this film was one that I was sure not to get excited for. Sucks to see the reboot series stagnate so quickly, when they got off to a phenomenal start...

I still hold the 2013 Tomb Raider in extremely high regard. I see where you’re coming from with the Uncharted/HZD comparisons, but breaking down the game that way is misleading, because it ignores the whole “sum of its parts” thing. Uncharted might have better writing and characters, but the gameplay is nowhere near as good as Tomb Raider. TR’s story is silly and over the top, but it fits the style of bombastic action game that they’re going for. And it’s well executed for what it is.

And on the gameplay front, you know how much I adore HZD, but TR’s combat and gameplay is exceptional. More to the point, they’re very different games (aside from the surface-level “female character with a bow & arrow” thing). HZD is an open-world game, through and through. Tomb Raider is a Metroid game. I’d say the closest direct modern comparison would be Batman: Arkham Asylum. Much tighter, linear-ish, with semi-open hub areas interconnected in a progressively more complex network of traversal points.
Rise of the Tomb Raider leans a bit further into “open-world” territory (just as the Arkham sequel, Arkham City, did), and it suffers a bit because of the more blown out nature (again, just like Arkham City).

So I just don’t think it’s accurate to tell someone to play Uncharted and/or HZD instead of Tomb Raider, because TR is a very different experience than either of those other games. Plus, it’s possibly the very best version of a modern Metroid-y game that exists.

Bought the new Tomb Raiders based on visuals and hype. Didn't get too far in the first one. (Sorry, stabbim. I'll trade you a Tomb Raider playthrough for a Last of Us playthrough.)

Are you waiting for a sale or just haven't made time for it?

No time whatsoever.