I'm an economics major; tradeoffs are, at this point, the bedrock of my mental landscape, from an analytical standpoint, anyway :).

For me, video games are primarily a way to relax and unwind; thus, enjoyable gameplay is the first and most important thing. Gameplay that has measurable landmarks for progress, so that your time doesn't feel like it's getting sucked into a vacuum, is better; if there's lots of nifty stuff to enhance the gameplay experience without overwhelming it, so much the better. I don't really look for video games as an avenue for experiencing storytelling so much; there are some examples of utterly phenomenal storytelling out there (the God of War series, the good Final Fantasy games), but, like so many other media, they're often drowned out by the mediocre, and, on top of that, there is often a tremendous amount of time investment relative to the amount of story there is. There's also issues with meta in the games that mess with suspension of disbelief; there are often things that you should be able to do but can't, for whatever technical or gameplay reason, and when they are explained the explanations are frequently ridiculous (one thinks of why you can't pick up enemy soldier's weapons in Metal Gear Solid). (And the things that aren't explained, such as why Thrall is a shaman but wears plate.)

That being said, I'm not all opposed to games as story -- I'm just content to take them for what they are, and look elsewhere for the really, really good storytelling.