Well tell me what sort of gendre's your in to and what appeals to you most in a game and ill try to make a recomendation.
I dont buy a whole lot of games, but i do do the reasearch first before i go out and get one, including multiple news review, its website, and forums if any, also demos. Trying to buy based on box covers is a hopeless endevor.
My latest one has been X3 Reunion (not xmen) and i have been pleasantly surprized (as the demo royaly ticked me off with the constant attacks every 10 seconds making it utterly impossible to realy try out the game let alone learn it). X3 Reunion has been out for several months now, i only got it now as i was waiting to see if they would fix the major problems (and they did the game runs great and has been 100% rock solid, they also seem keen on future support and development). My only major gripe with X3 is they use #%@#$% starforce keyless security
. Otherwise ive been playing solid for the last 2 weeks. X3 is a very open ended space sim where you can fly, fight, trade, and build. It also has its main quest line, but you can freely ignore it and do your own thing. It also has a wide variety of available ships, from little scouts to huge carrier ships, small frieghters to giant super freighters. all pilotable. You cant land on the planets, but there are hundreds of stations and many many sectors. In adition you can build your own stations, and even massive interconnected stations featuring up to 100 stations all connected. You can also build up a large military fleet, or automated trader fleet. Plus there are many many mods and scripts available. This is a game that will keep you buisy till the next version comes out in a few years.