1) Baldur's Gate (series)
2) Diablo (series)
3) Monkey Island (series)
4) Shadow of the Colossus
5) Mass Effect (series)
6) Batman: Arkham Asylum
7) StarCraft
8) The Legend of Zelda
9) EverQuest
10) Devil May Cry
11) Tomb Raider (series)
12) BioShock
13) Metal Gear Solid
14) World of Warcraft
15) Deus Ex
16) Super Mario (series)
17) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
18) Silent Hill
19) Assassin's Creed
20) Dead Space
Fix'd.
Sorry, but I don't consider those struck out as legitimate games, no matter how popular they are. Simply due to the extreme emphasis they place on grind instead of gameplay.
Adding those levels of grind to an otherwise solid game is like baking a delicious cake, and then only permitting yourself to eat an ounce of it per day. By the time you've eaten even half of it, it's gone stale and you want nothing more to do with it, but you must eat it or it will go to waste.
Commentary on the actual games:
Why are these on this list?
20) Dead Space (You have Bioshock listed, and System Shock 2, apart from its dated graphics, is a MUCH better space-horror game than Dead Space. BY FAR BETTER. As we say around these parts "Get this weak shit out of my office!")
19) Assassin's Creed (I simply disagree here. It's good, and very solidly designed, but I can think of much MUCH better games.)
17) CoD4.0: MW is basically a surrogate for Halo, seeing how stupidly similar the two games are mechanically when you look past the genre difference. It's an unfortunate quota that had to be fulfilled, but at least it's near the bottom of the list.
11) Tomb Raider (This series was never really excellent; merely popular due to its infamously well-endowed protagonist)
Additional Commentary:
6) Batman: Arkum Asylum (This game actually deserves to be on this list. I'm just surprised to see it so high up)
2) Diablo (Oh, I've sunk more hours than I can remember into D1 and D2...but even now I look back and wish I had found something else sooner)
What isn't on this list:
-Bethesda games (As hard as I am on them, Morrowind and Daggerfell are both quite good. Not sure if they're Absolute Top Caliber, but yeah)
-Metroid [series, minus Other M] (Really, I suspect this isn't on the list solely because of how shitty Other M is, and given how many recent titles are on here, it's still probably a sore spot in our collective memories. I'd place the Metroid games well above Mario and a bit above Zelda.)
-GTA [series] (well...the only ones that would be counted are from GTA3 onward, since so few of us actually played the top-down series)
-Half Life [series] (I'm not all that hyped about Half Life in general, and I'd still pick this over fucking Dead Space.)
-
Final Fantasy JRPGS (It's a sign of the times when not one game of what used to be an immensely popular genre isn't on this list. My picks for a representative would come down to Chrono Trigger, Suikoden 2, and Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions)
