I want your job! Really! 
City of Heroes has ruled my life since the first day it came out. First MMORPG I tried. Loads of fun, and there is the C.E.C.I.L. Super Group on Virtue server. And Doper non members like La Pucelle there also. Real easy to get advice and help.
Sims 2 is fun. Lot of nice improvements over the original.
Can’t really help with the rest, I don’t do much with FPS and the like.
Not to hijack the thread, but can someone tell me a little more about Hearts of Iron II? I used to play steel panthers II and Panzer General and would love an up to date WWII’er. Hows it play, top down, strat map?
Maxxie - you really should try the single player HL2. Some pieces of that are spectacular.
And I’ll second Brutus with the Battle for Middle Earth. If you like C&C or Warcraft, this is a nice twist.
As far as your new machine, I always end up comparing it to the pc I had before it, and can barely take the smile off my face for days. ATI card. You should be looking at 9800+ pref the XT version to be running these games on high.
In any case Have fun.
Good on ya! I haven’t played CS:S yet, but I played HL2 before I played Condition Zero, which I think is Half Life done on the Steam engine. I find CZ to be quite a bit more of a challenge than HL2, but HL2 is visually awesome.
I’ve heard so much about Far Cry, I’ll go snag it.
I’m much in the same boat as the OP, first upgrade in 6 years, and I went very nearly to state-of-the-art on this one. My last game was Quake III 
I loaded it onto the new machine to see how it played at max everything, man oh man.
And I have Doom 3 and just don’t like it. The visuals are OK, I don’t mind the dark. What I hate is: I know there will be a zombie behind that door, the same damn zombie every time. He is never down the hall, or around the corner. Even years old Quake III had the bad guys at different places, doing different things. HL2 even has the same drawbacks, at least the bad guys have some (very little!) latitude in HL2, Doom 3 is just too scripted.
And maybe all games are that way, I’ve been out of the loop. I would have thought that in the years that have passed since I bought QIII, the game developers would have spent at least as much effort on developing AI as they have visuals, now we have real pretty, hopped up versions of Quake II IMHO.
Sorry for the mini-rant, I got off on a tangent. Anybody start that Doom 3 pitting yet??
Your baby needs another 512 megs of memory. Make sure you match speeds. Trust us. Also, the secret to stable gaming is www.omegadrivers.net . It makes your computer stop crashing when weird stuff happens. Trust me, and download the appropriate video driver.
Quite a bit. Quoting from the manual:
"[M]ajor changes include a complete revamp of the technology system, further abstraction of the air and naval system, a significantly expanded set of diplomatic options, and many military changes (there are lots of new units; brigades are now detachable; carriers have integral aircraft; and the new “movement is attack” combat system now initiates combat when you begin to move to an enemy-controlled province). Other changes include a revised map with more provinces, greater generalisation (and realism) for resources and global trade, . . . "