Maybe Myst-style adventure games remain more popular than they have IRL?
I actually don't think that a shift to less human(oid) enemies in action RPGs would be a bad thing, because one thing that's often a bit dissonant is that you can play a character like the Lone Wanderer from Fallout 3 or Commander Shepard from Mass Effect as something of a peacemaker and humanitarian based on dialogue choices. And yet this same person seems largely unfazed by having to kill people all the time, even if it is self-defense. I'd prefer more options for non-lethal takedowns along the lines of Deus Ex and/or missions where most of the "action" is against, say, non-sentient combat robots and then there's a confrontation with the mastermind and choices for how to resolve it.