It was a good year last year, But FF13 tops it for me (and made my 2nd favourite game ever overall (1st FF was FF6,  personal favourite game and FF is FF12)), Honourable mention to Bayonetta though, Just unfortunate timing for Bayo there...

I suppose that's fair, but my tastes are totally opposite of yours.  I loved every Final Fantasy game to date except XIII, which was heartbreaking becuase I REALLY wanted to like it.  in fact, I've been so in love with the series that it actually kinda hurt to see that XIII was a huge departure from the series in such a way that it just plain didn';t work and lacked any of the depth or quality of previous titles.  

I guess my whole thing is that Final Fantasy 7, 8, 10, and 12 seemed like a departure to me anyway, so the Final Fantasy series I have always loved (exemplified by IV and VI) has been dead for years, so I went into XIII with no expectations at all.  I can definitely see how people who loved 7-12 would loathe 13, but I just sort of took it on it's own merits instead of as part of a series, since I wasn't into the series anymore anyway.  It was definitely very linear and most of the criticisms I hear of it are valid, but I sort of enjoyed that in a way since it let me just pick it up at my leisure and not feel lost at any point.

1. FF XIII has a superb combat system.

2. The graphics are phenomenal.

1. God of War III

2. Demon's Souls (western release)

3. Mario Galaxy 2

Oh, I love change, it's awesome!  I'm all for change and Itotally agree, IV and VI were by far the best, but the problem was that the changes weren't just changes (the Gambit/License system from XII, the Junction system from VIII, the steampunk art direction in VII) for the better or for uniqueness.  

The problems I had with it was that it had NOTHING good that had made previous FF's awesome.  No matter how the games deviated from previous games, they always had a great story, great characters, and plenty of sidequests and exploration to enjoy.  this game had NONE of it.  *shrugs*  well I guess it makes sense.  

It had a great combat system in theory, but it floped on so many levels, it was like they didn't TEST it.  There were dozens of things wrong with it, little tweaks that made it insufferable, issues with fairness, lots of cheap deaths, lots of STUPID things that could have been fixed with very little effort.  I could go into detail, but I'm too lazy to do it now. 

Red Dead without a doubt

For me Gran Turismo 5 (I don't remember if already answered this question).