I'm not sure how long the author has been playing video games(I've been playing them 30 years myself), but the concept of dividing a game into levels did not just begin with Doom, Wolfenstein, and other FPSes. The concept of levels connected by some storyline(however thin or shallow) existed even in some of the old arcade games. As for the save feature, that was a necessity to satisfy gamers' demands for ever larger and longer games; the games got bigger, but the human being's ability to invest such time and effort as required by the game in a single session did not change. So, the ability to save progress and return later had to be included.
As for the concept of dynamic content, I personally do not consider simply shuffling around the same gaming elements as creating dynamic content(which is all the examples presented, and indeed most games touting dynamic content, do). Current methods of "dynamic content" utilize the same assets shuffled about in various ways to give the illusion that there is something new and different, however, this is only an illusion. The basic game and how the game is played has not changed. The gamer's strategies and approaches to the game do not change as a result of this "dynamic content".
Dynamic content, in my mind, would be having the game actually invent a whole new region, level, item, monster, npc, or other assets on the fly or as the game progresses(or at the very least be able to research such assets and chose the appropriate ones for the current progression of the game) and insert those assets into the game at appropriate moments. However, this requires the game to do something that, as far as I know, is impossible for any computer to do, have an imagination. The game would also have to remember what it has done on prior gaming sessions such to not repeat the same content over and over, at least not until the gamer has completed the content at least once. Achieving this sort of dynamic content creation would require far more resources and effort than any current linear game, thus worsening the costs of game creation. Right now, the only kind of game that truly has dynamic content is the pen-and-paper role-playing game, because it uses the ongoing imagination of the human being to generate truly new content.
As I mentioned earlier, ever expanding games necessitated the invention of the save feature because the capacity of the human being did not change with the size of the game. However, this did not stop people from wanting ever bigger games to run away from reality. We wanted games that take us away from reality(yet, ironically, we keep demanding ever more realism in the game, destroying the fantasy of the gaming world), but even further, we wanted ever bigger games in which to more permanently immerse ourselves so that we don't have to deal with the real-world. We are constantly seeking a game that is capable of substituting for real-life. However, such a game cannot be created because it is impossible to generate all the assets and logic needed to create such a game. Just creating a truly realistic, fully interactive, dynamic parking lot could take years, never mind a city or entire nation. This is a problem of the gamer having, in my opinion, an unbalanced perspective on life and gaming. Games and gaming are merely one part of life, real-life, and they can never be a substitute for the entirety of real-life. One plays games for a momentary desire for entertainment and thrill-seeking. It's not meant to be a permanent thing, and, no matter how much you run, you can never escape real-life(there is a catastrophic solution, but I'd really rather not talk about that).
I assert that the problem of games today is not exactly that they need more content or dynamic content. Instead, I think the real problem is that the experience of games today has become too dilute. A single development house is only capable of generating just so much into a game in a given amount of time. But, this constant push for ever larger games has necessitated stretching that content out over a much larger game-space. The result is that the gamer receives an experience that lacks the intensity necessary for him to derive a sense of fun. I think the better solution would be to shift our expectations about gaming to be more reasonable with what can be achieved and focus on making a more intense, fulfilling experience rather than a progressively prolonged experience.
Along with this, my opinion is that replay-value has been severely perverted with the idea of easter-eggs and achievements in games, which have become substitutes for actual quality content in games and further serve to dilute the gaming experience. In my personal opinion, the assessment of replay-value is whether the game provides an experience that you seek to repeat for the pleasure of having that experience, as opposed to the chore of hunting for menial easter-eggs or grinding out achievements. Basically, is the game actually fun enough such that you want to have that fun repeatedly, or are you just going through the motions because there is some trophy to obtain.
(Another wall-of-text from the Geizr, but I don't feel so bad about it this time, cause I see several others have done the same.)
