"Gamer Manager"

First, design you gamer ... from the boxers all the way up to the non-slip wrist band and the screwed up eyes.

Then take control of his environment ... from the carpet all the way up to the bedroom wallpaper and permanetly closed curtains.

Are YOU man enough to build him the ultimate gamer rig?

Finally, you're ready ... but have you enough money left this month ... to choose the games he's going to play.

World of Goo was brilliant, cheap, and won't take up too much of your time (< 10 hours).  No DRM.

King's Bounty has been quite fun, but is also a time hog.

Colonization is very good, but too hard. It's shorter than a Civilization game, but still takes at least a long afternoon to get through a game of it.

Gamefly.  Don't spend $60 on something you can beat/play through in a week (or weekend).

I may be getting Red Alert 3 soon. I've been waiting on it for a while; I loved the RA2 campaigns. A few years ago, I picked up the Red Strike pack that includes the original RA2 and Yuri's Revenge a few years back and enjoyed the cutscenes immensely as well as having a lot of fun with the off-the-wall units.

I'm playing Spore, Mass Effect, Titan Quest, Oblivion and Half-Life 2 right now, so those are keeping me pretty busy with my relatively-small time budget for gaming (most days about a half-hour before work and sometimes an hour after work, maybe a couple of contiguous hours on the weekend).

Stuff I'm waiting for: NWN2: Storm of Zehir, NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate, Starcraft II, Disciples III

I may get Fallout 3 for Christmas or maybe not. From all the reviews I've seen, it looks to be a worthy successor to the line, but I'll probably wait until I'm finished with Oblivion (I pretty much just started the game, having picked up a new copy of the CE on Ebay). Fallout 3 looks to be a huge time sink.

Hellloooo....

LEFT 4 DEAD!  The only game you'll need this year. 

Zombies...Co-op play...randomness...

.....I mean...Zombies, man! 

I haven't seen that yet, but from the previews, I don't think they kept the feel; I guess it depends on what you mean by "feel," though. It's an Oblivion-style first-person POV RPG with pseudo-turn-based combat (meaning that it's pausable if you hold down a key--why do devs think we want to hold down keys to do things?--this is the same stupid interface design that annoys me about ME--just make it a toggle already!). The story loosely follows that of the first two games (not counting Tactics [now THAT was hard]), but isn't set in exactly the same time period. But it's still a post-nuclear spiritual successor to Wasteland.

I got the Premier Edition of RA3 as a late birthday present this weekend. I haven't gotten too far yet, but I'm playing through the Soviet campaign and it's pretty fun.

I disagree, Phazon. The co-commander concept is something different and a pretty cool feature for those who enjoy online gaming with friends (although, as the game points out, if you're like me and you have no friends , you can use the AI co-commander). All of the single-player campaign missions are designed around the idea that you and a partner will be completing the mission objectives cooperatively. I can't speak for the wetware commanders (competence will vary) but the AI commanders are pretty good at staying alive and giving you adequate support; in fact, I sometimes think that if I did nothing more than issue periodic orders to my co-commander, (s)he could complete the mission alone.