I feel the same about Ticket to Ride. Spend the whole game maybe doing something, maybe just drawing and passing, and then the game ends and somebody wins at random.

But these are good gateway games, games that lead from Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders to games like Betrayal and Root and Gloomhaven.

For the OP I would recommend Spirit Island, which is the perfect subversion of Settlers of Catan. Pass through Puerto Rico if you must (it's a better game than Catan but yeesh, slavery, and then double-yeesh, casual slavery erasure).