Good to hear you have something similar in mind. I think depth in combat could be something like active armor and cool-down for some special attacks, maybe weapons that deteriorate over time with use (eg. melee weapons) that sort of thing would give a game depth where the player has to think carefully about what weapons to equip and when to use them. Also ammo depletion could be a think too, so if in your game level you have ammo cache hidden away but dont have a whole alot of ammo the player might conserve their more powerful weapons for harder enemies.
Also i think it would be cool to include the ability for a game to have a card deck, (4 or 3 cards you can have at a time) the deck could be when you find a card you get the next one in the pile as it were) that is special abilities you learn could be a card with stats that can be enhanced or one time attack so a mash up of ccg and turn based combat like in those videos. These cards could be fanned out like you do when holding them in your hand but to the side and the player could click on one to activate one, perhaps cards on the left are active ones. This could for things like changing a stat of a weapon to crazy high for one combat turn or until fight is over etc.
This would make loot interesting because although you could find an uber weapon or whatnot, cards can open up to more possibilities the ability for the whole group to exit a fight unhurt, make your squad invisible for two minutes (which normal enemy detection doesnt apply for 2 mins) etc. So keep that in mind too, it could be something that can co-exist with the combat system or maybe a user decides to make his game like a boardgame with card based attack and defense. However i know that might be more work, but i was more thinking of the examples i gave above for card use- either passive or a one time play. Maybe cards can have value which you can cash in duplicates. Anyone just a thought.