Can't really think of anything in the last like, 10-15 years except the Quake games, HL2 or FEAR. I guess I'll go with Far Cry 2 as a more recent title.
Harvey Smith (lead designer on DX) does a good article which has a lot of points I agree with: http://www.witchboy.net/2013/02/07/the-genius-of-far-cry-2/ Purely in terms of single-player it offers some fantastic opportunities for emergent gameplay, in which the player is given a set of gameplay tools to bring about a situation relatively unique to his/her playthrough. The game has a nice combination of sandbox-style open-world level design and campaign progression with a simple but not too boring shooter engine.
On the whole though I'm quite unimpressed with the genre right now, not to mention the games industry....
Purely in terms of gameplay, shooters haven't really progressed at all since the original Quake. Item control, positioning, appropriate weapon use and exploitation of engine physics are concepts almost completely lost on the slower style of shooter seen in Counter-Strike and Call of Duty. There's been a bellicose focus on aesthetic and so-called 'realism' which people have come to see as the standard. I'm referring to both single-player and multi-player here. The idea that role-playing elements such as skill-points and weapon upgrades add a new dimension to a genre which has stayed the same for 20 years is a complete fallacy. Such gameplay elements are in no way pertinent to shooters themselves; that's not what shooters are about. They bring about as much value to a shooter than hats did to TF2 (this game is just one example of my above statement). Shooters are about those concepts which I mentioned above. Quake is special because of the prominence of such elements. The game's engine physics make for interesting gameplay in terms of player movement and weapon use - to be good at the game, an understanding of the physics is need to be able to traverse the map quickly and with agility, while one must understand the physical effects of the weapons - a rocket can push the receiving player into the air, or they can be pushed backwards by the shaft of a lightning gun. Item pickups such as weapons and armour require strategic timing and positioning in order for a player to control them and use the advantage they give.
Contemporary shooters severely lack such concepts. Of course, skill is involved, but only for relatively simplistic tasks such as aim reflexes and basic teamwork skills.
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