Examples of "do, don't show" I.E. examples of telling narrative through gameplay.

[Ordinaryundone]

I'm thinking but nothing is really coming to mind. You can tell stories without dialogue, but you cannot tell complex and multilayered stories without dialogue. Mass Effect, GTA 4, Red Dead Redemption, Final Fantasy 7, Halo 1, Half-Life 2, none of them would be the same without a more traditional narrative. We should never, ever forget the importance of that.

Well, I would disagree, since the first ten minutes of up told an emotional story

Spoiler

of Charles and Ele'slife together without a single word spoken, their happy times, their wish to have children
and her inability to have one using not a single spoken word.

But finding good examples of this has been hard for me as well that aren't flash game or games without any kind of cutscenes (such as Bioshock/Half-Life).

Actually, the intro to Up did have dialogue. Remember the very beginning, when they are kids? The montage afterwards would have never, ever worked as well as it did if we hadn't had that opening dialogue between Ele and Charles to establish their personalities.

 

[AdeptaSororitas]

I think Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core did it well.

Spoiler

In the last battle where Zack fights the army of Shinra soilders. No matter how many you kill they keep coming. The DMW does wonders for the narration, you feel that you know what's going through Zacks head even though he's dying. Incredibly emotional battle.

Halo: Reach Also ended on that not, it was very gripping, knowing that if you keep fighting you'll simply delay the inevitable, yet you(meaning most players, I think) keep fighting, even the visuals of the game help reinforce it, the level proceeding it is beautiful and bright, but you end in a dust storm of darkness, the only light that of the plasma fire that signals your defeat(literal light at the end of the tunnel). I have to say, Halo doesn't always do a bad job ^^