Even on Earth, with weather and generous erosion, large portions of land are very dense forests or very rough mountains.
Well, yeah. You pick those.
It's why Blue Origin does their tourist flights out in the desert.
We've even found some specific such sites. Forest coverage turns out to be a very minor issue on Mars.
https://www.space.com/nasa-perseverance-mars-rover-sample-re...
That's two of the most famous sci-fi franchises in the world, so I don't think sci-fi creators are as guilty of ignoring this possibility as GP seems to think.
Any supermarket car park, for a start.
Plus it would be handy for picking groceries so you can have a cup of tea and something to eat while you figure out how you're going to invade.
In Alien, the planet landscape definitely is chaotic and hostile to landing, and indeed the crew's ship is damaged during landing.