Damn, I was working on a big long post and I accdientally lost the tab.

Aztaka - Looked cool, but wasn't sure what to expect of a sidescrolling RPGs. It ended up being one of the most memorable experiences and one of the few games I'd like to replay at some point, despite having such a big backlog and a tendency to want to try something new before reliving something again. Also love the OST, and I'm actually working on a review for this one now (probably why it was the first one to come to my head).

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes - Graphics looked awesome, but wasn't sure what to expect based on the screenshots of gameplay. It's now one of my favorite games on steam, and the gameplay is also one of my favorites of all the games I've played. One of four games that I enjoy playing versus in (of the other three (Critter Crunch, Magic DotP 2012/3, and Zero Gear), one (Critter Crunch) is by the same developer).

Dungeons of Dredmor - I found this before becoming a part of any Steam community, so didn't know of it's awesome reputation. The video confused me because the movement of monsters between turns was so disjointed. Hesitated buying it at first, but when I finally did get it (thanks to cfriend <3) and play it, I absolutely loved it.

Lunar Flight - Was interested in it since I'm interested in all things space. Turned out the gameplay was super fun (once you figure it out). JOHN MADDEN

Sol Survivor - Wasn't sure what to expect based on the store page. 100+ hours I know it's one of my most played games, perhaps my favorite co-op game, and one of my favorites in general.

Avernum: The Escape from the Pit - Wasn't sure how much I'd like old school style isometric RPGs, turns out I love them.

Magic DotP 2012 - I never played the card game IRL, honestly didn't know much beyond the basics. Ended up loving the video game (still really haven't played the real card game, and I'm content with just the digital game).

Unreal - I knew it was a great game back in the day, but I was a console person then. I've played a few old games in the past year since I joined Steam, but this one was pretty awesome for me.

Chime - Just thought it would be another soso action puzzler. Turned out to be an amazing aciton puzzler, like it better than Tetris. Short but good soundtrack, the only song I wasn't crazy about was the Portal 2 song, novelty songs are funny but since I did the 100 companion cube achievement I got sick of the damn song, would have gladly done that achievement on any of the other songs.

Some others that turned out better than I expected or had some uncertainties that were never realized: Tidalis, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Thomas Was Alone, And Yet It Moves, Botanicula

This year it has been:
Torchlight 2: pre-ordered it because I wanted a nice A-rpg dungeon crawler game... The pre-order came with torchlight 1 and that game was okay, but T2 was just amazing, my goty :)

Skyrim: got it for cheap and didn't expect too much, but before I knew 60+ hours had gone by :3 Maybe it's not as good as Morrowind, but it's way better than Oblivion (never enjoyed that game at all :C )

Binding of Isaac: it was cheap, and I thought, why the hell not? Did not dissapoint, 50+ hours in already and not finished with it yet

Batman: Arkham Asylum: great game, bought it because it was cheap and hoped that it would be at least decent. It's amazing :3

Orc must die! 2: was unimpressed with dungeon defender's on a whole, but decided to buy OMD!2 with a friend and it has been a lot of fun playing together.

Diablo 3: Thought it was going to be utter shit, but decided to buy it anyways at 30 euros... Might not be as good as diablo 2 or torchlight 2 imo, but it's a fun game and I'm going to sink some time into it...

Portal 2: never played 1 or 2 of these because I thought it wouldn't be fun, I did watch all gameplay for the story as someone else played through it... But after buying it (being forced to, by a friend :P) it was actually pretty fun and steamworks keeps it fresh :)

Bioshock: Finally bought the game and I must say, I absolutely hate it... Worst 5 euros spent this year for me... too bad, I was expecting a nice game

SpaceChem

I hadn't really played many puzzle games before, definitely not seriously. If I was playing a puzzle game, I would more take the attitude of "play a couple of levels and then drop it forever". This was the exception.

I absolutely loved it, and still do, though unfortunately don't have much spare time to play it :/ But when I do have spare time I'll make sure to finish it :D

To the Moon.
I thought it could be a normal game, and I found the best story in a videogame.

Bioshock was much better than I expected, I wish I got the game on the release date, instead of waiting for 4 years.

Spec Ops: The Line - I was tired of all my 2d platformer puzzle or old school stuff, so I was looking at games in sale. When I saw Spec Ops I thought "meh, another gears of wars clone", but I had 5$ credit in amazon and decided to buy because it's was so cheap I couldn't skip. When I started playing the first thing I thought about was "MOTHER OF GOD this game is amazing", the story is a masterpiece and the gameplay is very funny. And they play "Rush" in the background, best part of the game.

Offspring Fling - "Again a puzzle platformer" but this surprised me, because it was clever, easy to play and not trying to be phylosofical or a puzzle game with a story, just a fun game. And they achieved what they wanted to do in a beautiful way. Remind me of my old NES/SNES games.

Dead Island - I waited for months to play it and then when I played I was completely into the game. But then the final approachs and was one the worst experiences in my life of gameplays. The final is bullshit, just bullshit. The gameplay is funny, you smack down zombies and thugs, but the story is so good in a way and so bad in another way. Really made me wants to cry, because of the time wasted.

Positive surprises:
Alpha Centauri. Bought it because of the box art, still play it today.
Deus Ex. Knew nothing about it at the time, one of the best games I ever played.
Baldur's Gate 2. My first RPG.
Alpha Protocol. Surprisingly good story.
Mass Effect 1 and 2.
The Walking Dead. Normally I don't really play adventures, but that one is really good.
Osmos.
Probably a few dozen more I'm not currently thinking of. I play a lot of games :D

Negative surprises:
Neverwinter Nights. Expected MUCH better after BG2.
Deus Ex: Invisible War. Expected much better after Deus Ex.
Mass Effect 3. But really only the ending, the rest of the game was ok (although not as good as parts 1 and 2. Who the f*** thought the asian space ninja villain was a good idea?!)

CreaVures. I'd gotten it from the Build-A-Bundle 3 to meet the three-game limit. Finally got around to playing it, having no idea what it was about. It was adorable, relaxing, and gorgeous. The characters were filled with quirks and personality, which isn't always easy to find in games these days. The soundtrack was beautiful (and ended up being perfect for my yoga practice). The only thing I didn't like was how short it was.

The Alien Shooter/Zombie Shooter games were a dissapointment. They were all exactly the same; the first Alien Shooter and Zombie Shooter were mindless bulletfests, while all of the sequels (Alien Shooter 2: Conscription, Zombie Shooter 2, and Alien Shooter 2: Reloaded) were mediocre RPG bulletfests. The only amount of entertainment I got was from (what I assume was) lazy programming: I was playing as a female character when one of the NPCs told me that he "hoped [my] wife was okay." Either the NPC was only programmed to interact with/respond to the male player characters or I had been playing as a lesbian the whole time and the game decided not to tell me until halfway through.

Borderlands 2 - I'm suprised of 7FPS and 7.4x10^i diffrent weapons.
Minecraft - you get easily bored of it, but with mods you gonna have never ending tale.

To the Moon, Hotline Miami, Mark of the Ninja. Those "little" games impressed me, recently.

YOU SURPRISED MY EXPECTATIONS.

BAD:
Splinter Cell: Conviction = not really felt like a stealth game. yeah there are some stealthing/sneaking moments but way too shorts, boring story, lame sidekicks
R.U.S.E. = played the beta and liked it, waited for final release and.... OMG single player is 0/10, what they were thinking?

GOOD:
Shadow Harvest: Phantom Ops = not as bad as I thought be, good voice acting, decent story
Titans Attack = pretty cool game, good music, challenging levels, upgrades
Duke Nukem Forever = after so many years of waiting it's arrived and most of the critics/gamers hated it
...yeah it's not worth $50 and people expected 10 years of waiting means 10 years of developing
but I still like it bomb, bullets, babes, beers & Duke's original voiceactor is back, kickin alien ass (like on the Moon)

Dark Souls. The whole idea of covenants, humanity and summoning was brilliant - it gives you the feeling that you're really in Lordran.

terraria:the 2d style fooled me, it is indeed an awesome game.

dwarfs?!: never expected anything from this, i thought it would be a boring tower defense or something, but its really awesome.

gta 4: my god the pc version, MY GOD THE PC VERSION¡.

dmc devil may cry: sure sure the new dante sucks but the game itself its preety awesome.

Diablo 3 - I was hyped up for this, I've played all of the Diablo games and I had pre-ordered and downloaded this new game very early on. I did play it long enough to finish the first difficulty but for me it felt quite long and boring. I actually enjoyed Titan Quest much more. I felt no desire to continue playing into the harder difficulty levels. Diablo's blurry console-type graphics turned me off almost instantly. I kept looking around for some sort of HD patch. The lack of decent item drops while levelling up also makes it a pay-to-win game, most of what my character was wearing was bought in the gold auction house so that I could simply keep up with the monsters. Not nearly as satisfying as getting a decent item from your own hard work. For the amount of time invested in the game by Blizzard, I felt it should have been better.

Awesomenauts - I didn't expect much but I've played tons and reached max level. Lots of action-packed fun.

Crusader Kings 2

After looking at some Youtube videos it sparked my interest in a way but was expecting a sucky game but because of my doubting I decided to check it out because I was bored and doing nothing anyways.

After installation, I launched the game and my first session was at least 3 hours and at the moment I think I spent around 200-300 hours on this game.

Crazily addicting.

Sleeping Dogs for me. I thought it was just another open world game but the story and fighting mechanics make you wannna play more and more.

Death Rally:

I thought this might be kind of interesting, but the metacritic score of 60% wasn't so great, and the 90% off coupon had run out (during the summer sale), so I was in two minds about buying it. While I was deliberating over whether to pay the $10, I was lucky enough to win it on here (huge thanks to einfachGaer!). So far, I've played 5 hours, and it's a blast. The gameplay is fun, and great to pick up for an hour or so at a time.

The unlocks and upgrades add an extra dimension, and the different types of races and deathmatches keep things entertaining. Not sure how much I'll play it once I've finally unlocked everything, although I'm sure I'll come back in a bit, reset my progess and go again! Would give it a solid 85%.

DoW II. Was extremely disappointed. Thought it was like DoW I.

Just Cause 2/ SR3/ and Space Marine. Was hesitant to buy them, ended up getting them and enjoyed them.

Diablo 3 - I expected it to be good and fun after that much time waiting for it... I was horribly let down. Invested far too many hours in it hoping it'd get better and more fun. It did not. haha

Fable 3 - Heard so many negative things about the game so I entered the game with really no good expectations. I've enjoyed it quite a bit.

Spec Ops: The Line - Was not sure what to expect from this game with all of the negative reviews. Boyfriend coerced me into finally playing it. I thought the story was very impressive, a memorable game to me story wise.

Mount and Blade Series - This has to be my biggest surprise of my games recently. I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy it because I didn't read anything besides the steam page nor did I hear about it from any friends. Took a chance and bought it, because it looked like it could be at least a decent time killer for a short time. The combat was very satisfying and has a great modding community to enhance the experience quite a bit. 113 hours logged to it so far had to sit that aside because it was making me neglect my other games I need to finish, haha.

FTL, i didn't expect it to be so damn good :) its focus on managing the crew rather than maneuvering the ship gave it a whole new perspective!

Far Cry 3 - Thought it was a normal typical shooter game but it's not. Hunting animals in the game is addictive :P

Cities in Motion, at first i thought 500mb WTF another game with crappy graphics, but then... Shit ! This awesomeness packaged only in 500mb

FTL - I'm just surprised by how good the game actually is I saw a few videos on it before playing and though eh it looks decent but nothing special but when you're the one playing it its a whole other story.

Don't Starve - This game is just amazing I saw some on this as well and though oh another Terraria or Minecraft thats cool but its so much more and the over all dark tone to it and just the sense of not knowing what to do is fantastic easily one of the best games I've played in a long ass time. Plus each update brings something new and interesting the last update brought Wormholes and Walls into the mix and I must say it really changed up things.

Thomas was Alone.

I thought it was going to be another crappy hyped indie plataformer and turned out to be a great game with a wonderful story.