I’ve been enjoying Chantelise. It’s cute, but not sacharine. It’s short, but has a lot to see and do within that length. It’s tough, but not unfair.
Amnesia:TDD doesn’t have any shooting. It’s pretty much an adventure game (object manipulation in the game solves most puzzles), but you do have to make some quick reactions. You might be running away from something or manipulating an object with relative speed. It does require you to monitor both health and sanity levels. Yahtzee’s Review is pretty spot-on.
Containment: The Zombie Puzzler took the typical Zombie Apocalpyse shooter and turned it into a fun puzzle game.
I have begun it, at it sounds like the most what I’m looking forward. Have not yet seen any baddies(only 45 minutes in), but enjoying the mood. It really is an adventure game so far. I keep looking for hiding places. I’m not sure if I should be looking to hide in cabinets, or the nearest light source.
After this, if I have time, I may try Borderlands or Bastion.
By all means keep the suggestions coming! I really appreciate it. 
Yes, except that it takes about 5 hours for the first 99% of the game, then about 15 more for the final level, which is insanely difficult. I think I read somewhere that almost no one finishes it because of the abrupt difficulty increase.
I had a BLAST with Atom Zombie Smasher…episodes are just a couple minutes long, so you can pop in and out when you get a chance. Edit: AND there are a ton of ways to customize and tinker with the game, so if you just feel like blowing up zombies wholesale you may, but it at the same time you can make sure that it never gets too easy.
Trine and Trine II are both great games which were recommended to me when I asked a similar question, and I would highly recommend.
I have played and beaten Psychonauts twice. I found the whole game took a lot longer than 5 hours, though, with or without the final level. It was hard, but no deal-breaker.
Another vote for Bastion - can’t believe I forgot to mention it. One of my favorite games of the past year.
Do not hide in the light. Things find you in the light. Horrible, horrible things. And you can see them.
I have Amnesia on my Steam account from some Indie Bundle that I bought (I buy those freaking things like they’re candy), but I’m scared to play it.
You guys are NOT HELPING.
I couldn’t finish it myself, didn’t even get that far into it, maybe a couple of hours tops.
At one point I was freaking out about footsteps coming closer and my wife decided to tap me on the shoulder just as I was opening a door and something jumped out at me. I fell off my chair, spilled my beer all over my desk/keyboard, hit my head against the coffee table, yelped so loud that my wife was startled backwards, tripped over the a fore mentioned coffee table and landed on her @ss.
Took about 15 minutes for my blood pressure ot return to normal.
No more Amnesia for me after that.
I found the gameplay in Chantellise a little frustrating, and never quite finished it.
I enjoyed Recettear and Fortune Summoners a lot more.
Bastion was pretty good, but aside from the narration was a pretty average action RPG.
I just finished the opening section of Amnesia. I mixed the chemicals to make an acid and burned the goop blocking the refinery area. I’ve entered the refinery now…
Seen no monsters yet, except one from afar. I have a feeling I’m getting closer to the actual monsters, though. The tension is pretty scary.
Stop playing now. You can still turn back. It’s summertime - there are beaches. With beautiful women. And children playing. The sun is shining. You don’t need to see the things you’ll see. Or learn all the things you’ve done. Just stop. God, just stop.
Yeesh, it can’t be that bad, can it?
Anyway, I saw the first(obviously scripted) monster in the Guest Room. Indeed, it freaked me out and I had to run to a cabinet to hide.
I can’t wait to see what else there is.
Good shooters ? Try Call of Juarez 1 and/or 2. Very fun, and quite purdy. In what other game is the Bible a weapon you can use (in one hand. The other hand is for dynamite.) ?
But not CoJ:The Cartel. Never The Cartel. In fact, if you ever meet someone who played it, cross the street and sign yourself.
I just recently played Amnesia. I am terrible at these adventure type games though, and I have no patience for the type of puzzle solving that they employ, so I used a walkthrough. And I didn’t play at night, or alone.
But it was still very scary!!!
So yes, if i had actually played on my own, in the dark, without a walkthrough… I don’t think I ever would have made it through just from the sheer terror it envokes.
But it is a very, very good game.
I usually just break out my totally okay, public domain NES roms, and go to town for a few weeks on those!
If you want something new-ish, how about Super Meat Boy? That (and Duke Nukem: Manhattan project) are the last pure PC games I remember buying.
Seconded. Especially Recettear. Fortune Summoners can get admittedly get a bit… unfair, especially when you’re Arche alone what with the horrible faux-fighting game controls (intentionally bad, according to Carpe Fulgur!). You’ll be Arche alone a LOT.
I wouldn’t recommend Amnesia unless they fixed the problems Penumbra had. Penumbra was scary until you realized you can easily outrun everything. Then it becomes the funniest game EVER as you outrun everything either outside its aggro range or to the next loading screen. If they fixed that it’ll probably be good and scary, but otherwise it will just be an adventure in tedium.
I’ll throw in a recommendation of Yahtzee’s Chzo Mythos games, starting with 5 Days a Stranger, followed by 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby’s Notes, and 6 Days a Sacrifice (Trilby: The Art of Theft follows the same character from the first and third games, but is completely unrelated plot wise, if it even has a plot).
Played them as they were released. Good games.