I don't know if it's newer games overshadowing the hype, but I rarely ever hear anything about Gears of War now. I'm always hearing about Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3, and I hear an equal amount of "look how cool Battlefield/Modern Warfare is" compared to "lol cod and battlefield are gay and casual."
But yeah, look at the biggest game announcements of E3 and tell me how many don't give the player a gun and a first-person perspective. I'm afraid, MMXPERT, that everyone plays FPS games, and you are abnormal. If you want to catch up on the huge amount of video games you've apparently been missing, I recommend starting with Half-Life.
Also I don't have any helpful tips for the OP. I suck at video games too, unless I devote hours to getting better at them. That's really the only way.