A lot of people purchase games that they regret wasting their money on, but what games have you purchased that gave you a lot of value for your money?

Games that you ended up liking or spending many hours on that you thought at the time was a risky purchase?

For example my recent games this gen would be:

Puzzle Quest Warlords (wii) : Was not expecting much, it being a DS port.  Purchased it for $10 at gamestop because there were no other wii games out at the time.   I ended playing the game to the floor.

Meteos (ds): $7 Used one of the best puzzle games I've ever played.

Dokapon Kingdom (wii): $17.99  Over 120 hours clocked between me and my friends.  Now 4 of my friends own the wii or the ds version of Dokapon.

Pikmin (wii):  Avoided it on the gamecube, gave $30 for it and realized what a gem it was.  Beat it twice.

nice thread there sir.

as for me, it would have to have been DW6: empires this gen on ps3, i was expecting that game to but sub-par at best, but damn for all that is holy... other then the chinese atmosphre the game is a solid 9.5 outta' 10 imo, there is none like it ever.

Tetris Nes I am still playing this game on my NES along with my DS

Elite Beat Agents Bought for $10 dollars and I love it.

Golden Sun- I got the first one at a pond shop guy recommended it to me. Paid 10 dollars for this one also. Loved and went on to buy the 2nd one.

Endless Ocean Blue World- Was not sure what to expect but bought it last night for $30. I would have paid 50 for it It is fun and addicting.

Among the games Im playin atm, Sonic and sega all stars racing is pretty amazing value.. Tons of unlockable characters( alex kidd.. yaaay), stages, music,50+ missions.. its a pretty sweet deal.

Another one would be Halo3 and oblivion. I dont think Ive spent so much time playing any FPS( barring doom/wolf3d), or any RPG(sorry chronotrigger), oblivion has SO much to do.

Assassin's Creed 2 - Fighting and story were much improved

InFamous- blew away my expectations and became a rare game I played twice

Castle Crashers- the game to me that proves graphics don't always matter, just great ideas

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion- Wasn't a huge fan of Marrowwind, this game became the game I have played the most ever

Little Big Planet- I screamed kitty game, then realized it was all around badass, original and super creative

Guild Wars. A friend of mine started playing it, said it was awesome. I ended up spending more than 2500 hours in it (that's across all three games and the expansion).

Fallout 3, because I was extremely dissapointed when I saw the first gameplay videos, but bought it because of the great reviews and played around 100 hours on it and more recently Bad Company 2, because I usually don't play online, but the game is just awesome.

Call of Duty 4 around 26 days, didn't think FPS could be the best.

*Fallout 3 - Played that many times, many different ways and probably still haven't discovered everything.
*Little Big Planet - With all the community levels, the game never gets old.
*Gears of War 2 - I bought this because my friends on Live pressured me to. So glad I did because I played that so many times (Horde and Multiplayer)