"Burger game" is a term used in Pelit magazine (particularly by the columnist and reviewer Niko Nirvi) to describe many of the modern games.
The sad state of computer game "industry" is that it's industry; It produces games like junk food for the masses to consume.
So, how do you recognize a burger game? Few original ideas, no effort, no creativity, and low lasting entertainment value. You know, the stuff that gets 70% scores in reviews, and upon buying will soon end up gathering cobwebs. Check out the reviews. Probably a few gets published next week. And the next. And the...
You have hopefully seen all those zillions of DooM/Quake clones, or Dune 2/Warcraft/Command & Conquer clones, or racing games? Yes, those are the burger games. Now, have you seen Civilization, Nethack, Falcon 4.0 or Half-Life? Those have what I'd call Innovation (before Microsoft stained the term).
The art of game design hasn't died, but the crap infortunately rules with an iron fist...
"Any company that is involved in creative activity, but that summarizes its goal with the always popular slogan 'the only purpose of the company is to bring profit for the shareholders', is going down."
- NNirvi, Pelit 9/2000