Tomb Raider was competent but absurd AAA studio garbage shat out to make money by A) capitalizing on an established name and B) providing 'what the average gamer wants.' It did these things laudibly but yeah, the narrative suffered for it.

I don't remember there being much shooting going on in LA Noire, though. I played it rather quickly when it first came out (overnight I think) but I seem to remember the game being mostly adventure segments and conversations; tbh I don't remember the shooting at all but I'm willing to say that's my fault.

Anyway part of the issue, imo, is that shooters sell well and are arguably much easier to make and present than an intelligent, complicated narrative with limited or even (gasp) no combat. If you look at a game like Amnesia or the games the dev made before that (the Penumbra series), the very limited (almost nonexistant) combat was supplemented by a stealth mechanic and a series of clever set piece puzzles, often utilizing physics or map design. That stuff is hard and takes time but, even more importantly, it takes intelligence, determination, and heart. Setting up shooting galleries (even gorgeous ones like we see in modern shooters) is waaaaay easier than designing a compelling puzzle.

So Amnesia substituted stealth and puzzles for shooting, but other games use other mechanics. Once upon a time exploration was it's own reward and games like Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia (especially the Sands of Time era) focused on that aspect; sure there was combat but it was either secondary or 'fantastic' (ie, fighting sand monsters and dinosaurs).

The biggest offender in my opinion are the Uncharted games, especially the first one (but maybe that's just because that's the one I played the furthest and pissed me off the most). 3/4 of the game is pretty damned good exploration gameplay and then BAM third person shooter. You have to kill dozens and dozens of people and Drake doesn't seem to give a shit. The game is clearly patterned on Indiana Jones but Indy killed like 30-50 people across all the movies, he doesn't crouch behind a waist high wall and blow 80 guys away for 20 minutes straight.

I was much more disappointed in Uncharted than the new Tomb Raider but maybe that was because my expectations were higher.

As the 'walking simulator' genre gets bigger (with games like Amnesia and, sigh, Gone Home being critical and financial successes) I think we will encounter more games that focus less on shoot outs and more on other game elements; however, I fully expect these other game elements to suck just as bad as shooting galleries because, as I pointed out earlier, a decent shooting gallery is pretty easy to pull off but you can't fudge a good puzzle.