AliasBot said:
Got HL1, HL2, HLE1, HL2E2, and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon for under 12 bucks combined. Not a bad start to the 30-dollar budget - if I just restrict myself to games under 5 bucks that I actually have interest in, I should be able to fill out my library with games I'll play without bankrupting myself. Hopefully. (Next up - hope the 'couch co-op' group wins that vote so I can grab Monaco for a buck-fifty and Octodad for 5.)
if you do that, must haves in my opinion:
-pretty much anything made by valve, Portal, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Counter Strike, hard to find better games on each of their categories
-FTL, one of the best games ever made, and hopefully you can catch it for 3.33-2.5 bucks when it goes daily or flash
-Torchlight 2, excellent for coop-ing
-Antichamber, fantastic puzzle game, is going to blow your mind, the standard discount right now is 70% (only 6 dollars!), whichis already pretty good, but wait and see if it goes on a daily deal
-Rogue Legacy, it should go for 5-3.74 bucks soon, fantastic metroidvania roguelike
-XCOM: Enemy Unknown you might still be able to catch the base game for only 7.5, worth every penny
-Fallout 3 GOTY edition, hundreds upon hundreds of entertainment hours for just 5 dollars, several times better than skyrim in my opinion (not thats saying much skyrim is boring imo)
-Civ 5, you might find the base game at around 6 bucks during a daily, its better with the DLC, but the base game can still provide you with dozens of hours ot strategic entertainment
-Just Cause 2, excellent open world game, has a multiplayer mod, regularly goes on sale for 3 dollars, is a complete steal
-Mark of the ninja, i bet you can find it for 3.74 bucks or less during a daily/flash, amazing stealth game
-Legend of Grimrock, old school and yet refreshing dungeon crawler, you can probably find it for just 3 bucks during a flash deal, or 5 bucks right now if you dont want to wait, it has steam workshop with hundreds of mods, high replay value
-Gmod, this one works best if you have tons of source games, is basically a toybox, download addons on the workshop until your PC explodes, is incredibly fun, it regularly goes for 2.5 during dailies and flash sales
-bit trip presents... Runner 2... future regend of rhythm alien, you can get it right now for 3 bucks, could potentially go even cheaper, simple yet addictive rhythm/platforming game
-check all the good vintage games, blasts from the past such as FEAR, X-COM: UFO Defense (the original X-COM game), Commandos 2, etc, there are a bunch of really great old games that go for real real cheap