Okay, first of all, sorry for writing a bleak post with no content, because yeah, I know those and I liked them. Second of all, I tend to watch animes with two friends and one of them is especially hellbent on animes with an actual, continuing story. Like, the kinda type that wouldn't watch Toradora! or Ouran High and can't get into Samurai Champloo's "a story an episode" format because he's a sad bastard. But we both consider Valvrave the Vibrator to be the greatest anime of our age.
We liked Parasyte (a lot), KonoSuba, Gundam 00, JoJo, Black Lagoon, Space Dandy and GitS, off the top of my head. And we all like the obvious classics like Bebop, Hellsing and such.
I dunno, guns, mechs, swords, pacing, story, intrigue, fun, plot. In any order. We watched Ping Pong and kinda forced ourselves to see its ending, for example.