For me, it is a very very close tie between Never Winter Nights and Rome: Total War.

Rome:
I just love the feeling of controlling the scipii, they are awesome.
Not to mention this is a better version the medieval total war, with better graphics and more units.
It has that awesome feeling, after you conquered a particularly tough faction by assaulting their main city directly.
It just looks beautiful. The best level of detail
I have seen so far with a RTS game.

Never Winter:
Hi, my name is Stinkywrix, and I am an RPG addict.
I have not been so addicted to a game since I got morrowind.
It takes morrowinds "oh crap it's two in the morning" feel
and upgrades it to "Oh crap, it's six in the morning and I've played this game since I woke up yesterday!"
I love the quests and the class diversity.
The story is pretty original.
So far it's like "a plauge is beseiging the city, you must find a cure for it" to "along with the plauge, several areas of the city has been seized by bandits, find out what's happening with the bandits while also trying to find a cure for the plaugh!"
There are way to many classes. And then there are upgraded versions of those classes you get after a certain level. And dungeon and dragons ruleset.
For teh win.

Those two games combined, let me tell you what it's like.

"World of Warcraft? what's that? is it a new expansion to neverwinter or something?"

Best.Game.Purchase.Ever.

Half Life 2

World of Warcraft, with Half-Life 2 in a close second.

Warcraft 3 battle chest which comes with the expansion (and strategy guide ).

I had warezed this game, and had a pretty low opinion of it since it doesn't have the variety or the capability for massive armies that Starcraft had. Me and Connection_Problem went and bought the battle chests and played online as a team, and let me tell you, the strategy that is required puts it ALMOST on par with Starcraft in terms of awesomeness, but nothing can match having over 300 zerglings surging across Big Game Hunters. WC3 is the best multiplayer game since Starcraft. (For those of you that read the other thread, this is for you Mort, I'm not going to say you know what...) HL2 was a good purchase since I got it for $25 CAD, and had a lot of fun with it (and now I can play CS, including the WC3 mod :p).

Battlefield: Vietnam.

Seriously the best multiplayer game to come out this year.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

hl2

2 Efil Flah

if i get enough money for christmas
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay: Developers Cut

if not
HL2
CoD and CoD:UO
Doom3

World of Warcraft and Doom 3

Knights of Honor FREAING OWNS.

Unreal Tournament 2004

Far Cry.

Beyond Good & Evil

Call of Duty, hands down.

Call of Duty: UO

WoW.

Halo 2. I wasn't really looking foreward to it, but decided what the hell and preordered it a week before it released. I've never had this much fun on xbox live.

Thief: Deadly Shadows
Bought it from a friend for £15, and its the best Thief yet. Being a Thief fanatic, I absolutely loved it.

Last years was Neverwinter Nights (at least I thought I bought it last year) BG2 ruled my life for so long (over 20 times completed personally) and NWN took it a step further. I have SoU but have yet to get HotU.

I might have put HL2, if I wasnt given it early for christmas :p so it technically wasn't a purchase.

Jedi Knigh: Jedi Academy. Because its the ONLY game that I've purchased this year. :p

probably metroid prime 2: echoes

Jedi Academy, simply for the modding diversity.

POP:WW

Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries

HL2.

HL2.

Ties:
GTA:SA
Metroid Prime 2
THUG 2
Half Life 2

One for each system!!!

If I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be HL2, but there are quite a few more that deserve a mention.

UT 2004
Morrowind+Expansions
Soldier of Fortune 2
Doom 3
Star Wars: Battlefront

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Didn't pay for it. My friend left it here.

Probably UT2004.

Half Life 2, easily.
Funny thing is, I only bought if for counterstrike source and all the other source games that will come.
The game itself was an addedd bonus, I didn't expect to enjoy it so much.
So HL2 for all the mods etc, and HL2 just for being HL2.

HL2
CoD/UO
Far Cry
Doom 3

Halo 2

Rome: Total War, followed closely by Half-Life2.


lol, I also broke down and bought Battle for Middle Earth just cause it's LOTR, and I'm so disappointed, it's not even funny. The battle of Minas Tirith has like 150 orcs in small "waves". wtf?!
Grond broke down the gates, and 4 trolls went in, but there were like 2 orcs to "swarm into the city". Jeez, someone needs to make a LOTR mod for Rome: Total War, then we'll see huge battles with thousands of soldiers. LOTR just doesn't fit with the whole "Build base, and keep cranking out troops on the battle map like every other RTS" style of play. RTW's armies are much more realistic not just historically, but to LOTR as well.

So far it's GTA: Sandreas, it could change after Christmas...

Thief 3, Metal Gear Solid 3, Halo 2, and Knights of the Old Republic 2, in no particular order.

Half Life 2 followed by Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.

I finally beat PoP:WW. I gave up before coming back home because I was getting frustrated in the second fight with Kaileena. After beating it, I was just a little unhappy because that's the second game I bought and bothered to beat that didn't have a proper ending (HL2 being the first).

I have yet to beat Doom 3 and Painkiller, but those stopped being fun for me, so they don't make the list.

Daikatana for 5 €...thats about 7.50 pound or $6
i found out that the game is crap after i installed it...i never touched it since that day
And it was the only game i bought this year xD

Pong and space invaders