This sounds like someone who is looking at the Wii, saying "Gee, the Wii sure sells a lot of units AND party games. That must mean all gamers want is short games that can be beat in an hour".
Either that, or he is looking at games like Rockband and Guitar Hero, which can be played in 10 minutes if you want, and thinking that all games must be short if they hope to be as popular.
The way I see it, the greatness of a game does not depend on length, BUT a game should accomplish what it sets out to accomplish. HEavenly Sword was only 5 or 6 hours to beat, and I felt like the game was a masterpiece. Like I was playing somethign special. Was it over too soon? Sure, but the game felt like a complete product that the developers poured their soul into from begining to end.
Games should be seen as movies. They should be the proper length for what you are trying to do. If it is too long, it feels boring and dragged out and players lose interest. But if it is too short then the game feels rushed and sloppily thrown together.
The biggest problem, though, is that too many so-called "gamers" don't care about the vision or the whole product. They don't care about quality and want every game to be 40 hours long (or more) because otherwise they feel like they are wasting their time and money. That doesn't sound like a real gamer to me. A real gamer should care more about the quality of the product and less about how drawn out developers can make the game.
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