I've decided to focus a bit more on my back log this holiday since I don't have a lot of time for gaming anyway up until christmas, and maybe see if I can't score a few games as presents at the same time. So I've decided to only buy one more retail game this side of christmas, and the choices are as follows:

1) Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - I love Burnout Paradise, and NfS looks like a big upgrade in certain areas, and the demo was pretty awesome to play as well! I could see myself putting many hours into Autolog competition. 

2) Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - I really enjoyed AC2, although it had its faults, and I have a passion for games with this kind of focus on movement (AC2, inFamous, Mirror's Edge and Just Cause 2 are all games I love for that aspect alone), plus the multiplayer is pretty enticing.

3) Gran Turismo 5 - I really liked Prologue, despite its limited scope, and I'm really looking forward to doing some 'real' racing here. Not to mention that it has local multiplayer, which is a big plus!

All in all, I really want all three, but I'm only going to get one. For now. And I know the community well enough to know that there is going to be overwhelming support for Man Furismo Jive, so answers with good reasons are appreciated.

GT5 easily out of those choices.

at the time of this post 2 people voted for Man Furismo Jive so other then me who was it? (i think it was the OP)

my answer is simple. best racing game and experience ever.

You simply have no choice. There is no competition for that one game.

GT5 and AC:B

i voted for NFS

How many of you read the OP?

It's on like Donkey Kong!...

*door crashes down and I'm torn from my chair*

Hey! What is this?! Where are you taking me?! I WANT JUSTICE!!! I WANT JUSTIIIIICE!!!

From those I'd go with GT5 if you don't plan on buying anything for quite some time. If you wanna actually go through more of your back log I'd go AC:B. If you go GT5 you can kiss your backlog goodbye for another year or so and it'll have grown to a count greater than that of GT5's car list by then.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit - I love Burnout Paradise, and NfS looks like a big upgrade in certain areas, and the demo was pretty awesome to play as well! I could see myself putting many hours into Autolog competition.

Ok, I voted Assassin's Creed before fully reading your post.

But, I'll say buy them in this order

GT5, NFS:HP, AC:B

Why? Because GT5 probably won't drop in price for over a year. AC:B you can probably get new for $20 6 months later (that is how I bought ACII), and NFS:HP you can probably get at a decent discount new 3 months later. I only put it this way because you want all 3 so you might as well get the best bang for the buck.