Julio said:
I usually follow shooters and sports games, maybe because neither genre requires complete time commitment but can be enjoyed in shorter bursts.
That's why I play MMORPG's.
The title of the discussion is "Your favorite video game genre", but what games I enjoy is one thing, and what games I like is another. Of course I like the games I play (wouldn't be fun otherwise), but I'm not playing stuff I like, and might like even more than what I am playing, because I've gone casual and don't have a lot of time to dedicate to gaming.
I used to love strategy games, both realtime and turn based, but they're a real time drain. My longest even gaming session was about 17 hours playing Heroes of Might & Magic III some ten years ago (or a little more). This is one genre that I've pretty much stopped buying recently, even when it's heavily discounted on Steam. I do own but have yet to play HoMM 5 and King's Bounty: The Legend.
I love RPG's (Planescape: Torment is certainly in the running for my favourite game ever), but have also somewhat stopped playing them, because they can be long and require to remember the plot and mechanics, which is hard when not playing much. That's where MMORPG's come it, as they tend to have shorter story lines and often simpler mechanics. I go for "free to play" ones so I don't feel like I'm wasting $15 a month not playing. I wish City of Heroes had something like that, since I love that game and think it's great for casual play.
I used to play a lot of adventure games, I think I just lost some of the patience required to play them. I did enjoy a subgenre of them recently, the hidden object games. They're a more casual variety, that still has a story and puzzles, but has in-game hints and shorter play. Plus they have real applications in real life, for example finding the toddler's bottle amongst the toys.