Comparing SR4's "fun" with TLoU's "fun" is an odd choice.

Perhaps I should have elaborated: I enjoyed the story of Saints Row IV a lot more than I did TLOU. It's a lot more engaging, a lot more fun and it's one of the few comedy games out there that genuinely made me laugh. Sunset Overdrive, eat your heart out, because this is how you do it.

I'd argue that it's narrative dissonance in comparison to a game like TLoU

/Sigh

Like so many people who use that word, you're using it completely and totally wrong.

Ludonarrative dissonance is when story and gameplay contradict each other. However, the hyper-violence of Infinite is not dissonant. The entire underlying theme is that Booker DeWitt is a violent man from a violent world, trapped in a cartoonishly racist and stucko city that is desperately trying to hide its own desires of and committance of violence. The story is entirely based around the idea of violence: Elizabeth's abhorrence of it, Booker's indifference to it, and Comstock's secret love of it. The violence in the game only reinforces the underlying narrative, it doesn't contradict it. In fact, with how much the core premise of the story is based around the idea of violence, I might as well claim that The Last of Us itself is a victim of ludonarrative dissonance because Ellie is a little girl and little girls aren't supposed to be violent! I trust we both know how utterly absurd that is given the story and themes of the game, and it's exactly the same way with Infinite.

your argument seems to be under the basis that one form of storytelling is better than the other

No, and I resent having to keep correct people every time I get told that "your opinion isn't fact". Obviously that's not what I'm arguing.

I didn't say "better". I said that one form of storytelling, by definition, uses the medium to a fuller extent than the other. The only thing that differentiates video games from other forms of media is interactivity, and when a game wrenches away that interactivity, it has at least partially missed the point of the medium. I don't mind cutscenes, and I don't think they automatically make a game worse or can never be used effectively to tell a story. But that kind of narrative simply cannot operate on the same level of interactivity as one without cutscenes, and interactivity is kinda the entire point of video games. That isn't opinion, that's simple fact. What is opinion is that I believe that games that avoid doing that are almost always more immersive and often tell better stories.

For example, in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth the setting and world lore is key, even over the characters.

Which is why Tolkien would get a critical mauling if his books were released today.

The zombie apocalypse is a back drop to the larger story being told

I know. And I'm critical of that backdrop because I find it unimaginative and boring. And frankly even with the good characters that TLOU had, they couldn't stop me thinking "Zombies? Really?"

with minor tweaks to the story, could be changed to numerous different settings without taking away the impact of the overall narrative

I'm disappointed you weren't on the writer's team at Naughty Dog, then, because I'm sick of zombie games and dumping a game with as much clear heart and passion as The Last of Us in one is like throwing a pinecone in a bowl of fruit salad.