So the only thing you really cared for was the nostalgia factor and the story; not the actual gameplay, or anything unique to video games as a medium. To me, Gone Home does nothing unique outside of presenting a homosexual relationship in a realistic way. And while it's quite different from what video game stories do, it's not completely new. The way the story is presented isn't very unique as well. Several games present their narrative indirectly to the player and require them to fill in the gaps themselves. Gone Home's problem is that its story is rather simple and doesn't leave much room for interpretation. Many other games like Thief, Resident Evil, and the Souls series present their stories in a similar manner, but I find they do it in a more interesting way. The Elder Scrolls series alone is rife with texts that all build a lore with more depth than any other game series I can think of. It's all presented in unique ways (journals, historic texts, religious scripture, folk stories, etc.) and allows for various degrees of interpretation, but it all contributes to an overarching narrative. The subject matter alone make all these games more interesting than Gone Home, but maybe that's just me.
Maybe I just couldn't get wrapped up in the nostalgia in Gone Home (despite growing up in the 90s). Maybe I couldn't appreciate the coming out story it was trying to tell. To me though, game stories, and stories in fiction in general are the most interesting when they deal things unfamiliar and tackle subject matter people are unfamiliar with. And while Gone Home does that to a certain degree, it's still firmly grounded in 90's nostalgia and the story is not really unique, nor is how its told; the last point is especially important for video games, because the medium can present story to us in so many different ways.
