Definitely recommend playing or replaying old games. I’ve recently put hours into replaying Morrowind and Jedi Academy.
The main game I’ve been playing lately is Mount & Blade Warband from 2010. Got it for a couple $ and have been loving it. I missed it when it came out and recently a friend had been talking a lot about how much fun it used to be.
I have played a few newer AAA games that I uninstalled after a few hours. Sure there’s some great new games, especially from small publishers or indie devs, but there’s a lot more slop like you said.