Talk About Yourself (aka Narcissism 101)

[color=#006FFF]Deus Ex: Boring.
Half Life: Was never interested.
Portal: Love.
Mass Effect: Boring.
Arkham City: Boring.
Dishonored: Was never interested.
Uncharted: Enjoyed all 3 major titles.
Heavy Rain: Lost interest.
Red Dead Redemption: Was never interested.

I do understand that several major Japanese game developers have a hard time getting a game to sell very well overall, like the ones you mentioned, but I'm not much of a FF fan or a SF fan, so those two companies in particular don't effect me much (I do enjoy Kingdom Hearts though, so I support SE to an extent). PlatinumGames (Bayonetta and Vanquish) is composed of some of my favorite developers like Hideki Kamiya and Atsushi Inaba, and I do love their games (PG's) a lot more than the ones listed above.

Most Western games, regardless of genre usually just don't have much appeal to me. It's not just because of whatever the story may be about, since I love the Metal Gear series and that couldn't get more Western in its setting of war, but because the story is told in a way I can enjoy alongside a unique playing style, I prefer it to something like Deus Ex, which I got bored with very quickly. (Partly because I felt stealth was not a good fit for an FPS.)

I'm not saying that Japanese developers are always better though. There are a number of Japanese games that I don't like, for one reason or another (one, of the top of my head, being something like Lollipop Chainsaw). I'm just saying that, as far as the majority of games that I thoroughly enjoy goes, I'm more than likely going to be playing a Japanese-made title. In comparison to the Western library, Japanese games overall usually have a more appealing cast of characters that aren't so two-dimensional, a more appealing graphic style rather than always going with realism, and they (used to) try things more often--they would take risks in some aspect (case in point being something like LoZ: The Wind Waker and its use of cel-shading graphics in a series that had otherwise never used anything like that).

As far as major developing companies go, I would say that Nintendo still, and always has, done it best though. Their games--the major titles anyway--always at least try to appeal to everyone. Aside from a few T-rated titles, they always go for a graphic style that'd be appealing to everyone and always revolve their games' gameplay around having fun and that is something that I think many games (Western and Japanese) lack nowadays, especially in comparison to ones from the past. Games went from being about having fun to getting involved in a deep story (Final Fantasy, Mass Effect, etc.) and while I'm fine with that, I think a game should put most focus on having fun and good gameplay before that because, no matter how great the story, if the gameplay is terrible or just boring, most people won't stick it out--sometimes I'd rather be reading a book about the story than playing just to see where it goes.

Is there a Western game that has a great story with a fun yet simplistic style of gameplay? Well that would be Journey.