Return of the Obra Dinn: Amazing mystery/detective game. However once you've played it, you basically can't play it again as you remember the solution already and the challenge of the game is trivialized.
Chants of Sennaar: Really great game about deciphering languages. However, once again, by playing the game once, you'll remember the languages and the game has no challenge any more.
Outer Wilds: Mystery adventure game. There is some replayability as there are perhaps areas that you can still explore, but largely once you figure out the mystery and complete the game, there's not much more to experience. Some people speedrun the game though.

All of the above games I value extremely highly even though I only played them ~8-10 hours.

Do you have any others?

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[–] spunkycomics 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

A problem with The Witness is that the game’s single biggest excitement comes from a twist that revealing completely spoils

spoiler

The environment puzzles

So it’s stuck in the position of letting 80% of its player base walk right past the best part, or preserving the moment of discovery.

I’m personally grateful it has the integrity to let me find it on my own, but it’s also a bummer since at least two of my friends beat it without ever realizing