I think Infinite mostly doesn't even attempt to be art in any way specific to games. Unlike BioShock 1, it tells a story about choice that could fit well in a movie, a book, a television show. It doesn't much leverage the unique capabilities of its medium. Far from a particular triumph or watermark for the art of game narrative, I think it's actually a bit of a dead end. I think Bastion or Alpha Protocol are both much sharper examples of how games can be written to succeed in a way possible only in games.
Ok, I agree here - to an extent. Bioshock itself could have been told in a film or book itself as player agency in that game largely had little in the way of consequence; the ending variations were utterly contrived morality points primarily - the game spends most of its time building a critique of objectivism and individualism, and then tops it off with a morality vignette that equates objectivism/individualism bad, and altruism good. The whol ramming in your face of "short term rewards, long term detriment" vs "short term pain, long term gain" throughout the subtext and its use to critique objectivism and individualism had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. Not that I think Bioshock was a bad game or that subtext must be subtle (I mean, I really did enjoy the hell out of the game), but it didn't aspire to do much with its narrative. Gameplay, sure - Bioshock improved a lot on the things that made System Shock 2 a great game and streamlined many of them, but its narrative and environmental design both fell a little flat.
I think Bioshock Infinite, flawed in execution though it was, was a necessary conclusion to the whole 'Shock' concept of games, which ultimately are about the limited effects of agency in world's beyond our control. System Shock 2 took aim at the meaning of agency in a world where gods are active and beyond your limited control; Bioshock took aim at agency in a world where man claims to be god; Bioshock Infinite is a commentary on how agency exists where there is no god at all, but rather simple cosmic inevitability. [And talking about this in general and the way all three titles interact with force and power makes me think Mr. Levine is a fan of Foucault, but I digress.] BSI spends the entire game illustrating that agency and choice are utterly meaningless in the player's world, and then Elizabeth points out that choices are always possible and meaningful in a way that never even occurred to the player through the entire game. It's a commentary on linear thinking itself, and the forces that shape it.
Whereas you seem to find that the game hates itself, I think the ending and Elizabeth are actually examples that that is not the case - the point that choice is indeed both meaningful and possible, always, and that any arena that purports otherwise can be wiped away and dismissed as irrelevant. I don't think that's so much self-loathing as simply an example - the player has just seen a world in which they were led to believe that they were the protagonist, that they had no choices, but what they did was nonetheless meaningful... and Elizabeth simply says no. So long as you exert no agency, you are irrelevant and unimportant, and I reject you and your experiences outright
to the point of their very existence.Where you find the aspects of the game that seem self-loathing vapid, I find them a fascinating commentary in games themselves - "You have no agency; you are meaningless and irrelevant." Elizabeth is a reasonably subtle statement to the entire gaming industry, for a game that does not involve the player has no purpose or relevance is unworthy. And it's bloody marvelous that someone actually demonstrated this in a game that was widely praised... just for all the wrong reasons.
I think BSI is a bold statement that does advance the art form, and exercise in demonstrating to players why lack of agency is unsatisfying, unfulfilling, and ultimately meaningless, and a cry to move games forward as art and not Call of Duty #2437: Ghostly black zombie warfare tactics.
