I was thinking about how much I dislike that twist overall, and then I realized that it also describes The Matrix. That is, I dislike the trope when the twist is "it's VR and the characters knew it all along" - who cares, why didn't any of them mention it, what are the stakes - but I enjoy it as a trope when the characters are also surprised by it, have to escape, have to bend the genre or hack the system, etc.