If the game has a multiplayer element to it, like Max Payne 3 or Borderlands 2, I'm more likely to get it when it comes out, because for the first 2-3 weeks there will be a ton of people on your friends list playing it. And there's nothing funner than the first time you and a friend fly past each other down a narrow hallway, guns blazing, in bullit time. Listening to the squeel of discovery over your headphones is priceless.

I really liked Max Payne 3, but it didn't have an unlimited shelf life. Most games don't.

But even with games we'll all be playing for a long time, sometimes you just have to be there when everyone is discoverying at the same time what makes it so good.

Like first time we all played Flood together in Halo 4. The sound of 15 grown men screeming like girls and nearly crapping thier pants and all at the same time was well worth the $60 I paid for that game.