Before I go into my comment I want to say that I am a retro gamer through and through. I still own many of my childhood systems and play them. Now that that is out of the way I think that it is real easy to say that games aren't the same as before, but I think that is wrong.
There are tons of games out there that check off your longing for hard games and co-ops. Cuphead comes to mind, it is an amazing game and has couch co-op. Gears of War, all the sports games, Super Mario 3D World, Left 4 Dead, Diablo, Rayman. The list can go on and on. There are games like Persona 5 and Forza Horizon 3, very different games and yet both can take 100+ hours of your time. I think the cool thing about today's gaming is that whatever type of game you want to play it is probably out there. Protip: if you buy your games digitally on Xbox One (maybe PS4 too) and you have 2 Xboxes you can play the game at the same time. Thats how I play Sea of Thieves with my 2 kids. 2 xboxes 1 pc, 1 purchase, lots of fun no screen peaking. Nice article. I really enjoyed it