I'd say it's usually down to the game for me, though I'm not entirely play-style agnostic. I do lean towards the same personal preference as yourself having grown up on classic adventure games myself. If I had unlimited time and brainpower, then generally the more engaged/involved the game gets me in interacting with it the better (as long as it doesn't get to be to tedious survival/management game levels)... BUT, with more limited time as I've gotten older and sometimes just wanting to just relax and experience something that requires much less thought/participation I find that I really like having a good mix of different types of game styles to go back and forth between depending on what I feel like and my schedule.That's where great minds differThe more the player has to do, the better. My favourite play style would be something like an point & click adventure game, meaning: A LOT more dialogue than sandbox usually have with NPCs giving hints about what to do next (not directly, but for example talking about the upcoming xy event or missing something). Collect items, combine them, use them with something specific.
I'm also kinda split on games that let you experience everything in a one giant playthrough vs. games that require multiple playthroughs to see different aspects that interest you (there's also "New Game +" types that are somewhere in between I guess). While I generally prefer the former, which is usually the minority of AVNs, some of my favorite games are the latter and again I feel like it's down to implementation and what fits the game/story.
