In general, it's been rough times for value investors in recent months and years. With the overall market going higher and higher, the number of stocks trading at depressed valuations has shrunk. Thus, in general, there are more and more value traps and fewer genuine value opportunities out of the subset of seemingly cheap stocks. Much of the stuff that seems "cheap" now in retail and small-cap energy, for example, is actually rather unattractive once you factor in leverage and the declining profitability outlook for those sectors.
That said, there are still value stocks that