In my opinion things haven't changed drastically.
Cookie cutter games are pretty typical nowadays, but they were "back in the day" too.
The only real difference is the games being cloned to death.
People often cite the volume of generic AAA titles as evidence that games have declined in quality, but this has always been the case. Team17 for example,.... nothing but clones of the hits of the day, and I can't think of a single one of their games that's as good as what they're cloning. They're not bad, but nothing but clones of the popular genres of the day.
If anything, and the differences are marginal, I'd say gaming is better today, but unlike yesteryear you have to do a little searching for the gems. There's simply too much stuff out there for big name magazines and media to cover everything nowadays.
