I often enjoy more obscure, janky games with interesting-if-flawed ideas and execution, but that is what usually prevents games from entering the true mainstream, other than the usual things like marketing and visual fidelity.

However, I will never properly play a STALKER game because I hate the setting. I despise the stereotypical post-apocalyptic atmosphere with the usual rusted industrial environments, ugly buildings, lack of vegetation, and everything being a shade of brown and grey. It's the worst. And if you enjoy that, then fair enough, but even if the STALKER series were the best games ever made, I'd still be turned off by the setting.