A position I take that is quite hard to explain in any way that is actually helpful is that for a game to catch someone's attention it must have aesthetic sensibilities that no other game has. To truly get someone's attention anyway, enough marketing budget can undo that, but for an indie game, a vibe (mysterious, unquantifiable) that I haven't felt before will pull me in quicker than listing off genre conventions it follows. This is how Hypnos, a first-person adventure and exploration game "set in a lovecraftian megastructure fever dream," got me to pay attention.
I have no idea what you do in Hypnos, but its cosmic horror, megastructure world looks so pretty I'm not bothered
