Out of interest, how far did you get in velocity 2x? Not trying to be funny, but did you play it for a couple of minutes and stop, or did you give it a fair try? The reason I ask is because velocity gradually introduces new abilities, and the game gets better and better as you get through the levels. Personally, I didn't think much of it at first, but as I gained abilities, things became far more entertaining.
If you didn't get very far, you should give it another go. If you did, then fair enough.
Level 18 or 20, thereabouts. Also played the first one and disliked it. Everything about it - the music, art, lack of animation on many sprites, the jerkiness of teleporting and clunky feel of almost everything, the level design - literally nothing about it clicked with me. I disliked almost every individual element of it. Once they introduced on foot sections with a completely different control scheme, breaking your 'flow' I realised I was definitely not going to like the game. Soldiered on for a bit, but once it got hard there was no reason to keep trying as I simply wasn't enjoying myself. I have no idea what anyone gets out of it, I really don't.
While, sure, 2D games have become a bit of a niche, I'm not really sure how something that uses 3 buttons and a stick is less accessible than something that needs 12 buttons, 2 sticks, gyro and a d-pad. Do you mean 'unusual' rather than 'inaccessible'? Because to most people just starting out with computer games, 2D games are much easier to play. Spelunky especially starts off with 'move right and jump', which is much easier to get your head around than spinning a clickable joystick and controlling a camera in a 3D space at the same time for a rookie gamer.
As for AAA titles, sure, Assassins Creed or CoD is mainstream, but not all of them are not 'niche'. Something like X-com, or RPGs in general, require a damn sight more effort to get your head around if you don't usually play them than something like Resogun or Velocity.
Personally Ps+ would be completely useless to me if they just loaded it up with sports games and cinematic AAA stuff, that would ignore most of the variety that exists outside of such narrow definitions, but I agree with any argument that says a mix would be best. To me that means a minority of AAA stuff due to it making up a relatively small amount of the games released, despite it's high visibility and popularity. Obviously zero AAA stuff isn't good either.
Sure, unusual is a good way of putting it, but I do also mean inaccessible. When I started playing Spelunky my average time of survival was about 6-10 seconds for my first 100 deaths. The controls are perfectly accessible, the game design itself isn't. Most people will be seriously fed up at a lack of progress at that point. I went on to get the Ironman trophy (earlier today!) but surely you can see that such a punishing, 'high score run' style game isn't exactly a welcoming game design? You have to be 'on' all the time playing Spelunky. You can never relax.
As for Don't Starve, it is beyond cryptic in terms of what you can and must do to survive. I mean, I love the thing and 100%'d it, but the first time I died because of hounds out of nowhere even I was screaming 'bullshit'. The artstyle of both of those games doesn't exactly have what I'd call mainstream appeal, either, even if Don't Starve's art is fantastic. (Spelunky less so.)
And as for something like XCom, it's not at all what I'm suggesting PS+ needs to deliver. As you say, it just doesn't serve that casual audience at all. (Again, I personally love it.) They just need to make sure that the more casual, AAA, narrative based gamer has something every month, imo. And then have interesting and difficult games (indies or not) for those of us who get our kicks that way.
