Recently I've read a lot of opinions that story and atmosphere are secondary to gameplay, so maybe I just read the wrong forum, but story is considered an extra to gameplay. And some thought story and atmosphere should be scrapped entirely, and only gameplay conts (not making this up). o.O
Personally, I gladly play a crappy game if the story is really good, Aquanox 2 for instance (then again, it wasn't really bad, just really average), but I don't think most players agree with that, unfortunately.