Which mods do you suggest?

Oh but that is the fun!  Finding the ones you want to use.  YOU decide how the game should be!

Personally though the FOOK mod is essential.  It adds about 80 weapons and things like starvation and limited ammo.  WAY more survival, and it is incredibly fun running around and not knowing what weapons you will find next (M1 Garand, P90, L86 LMG, M249, ...).

Saints Row The 3RD.

I hate crime games. I really don't give a shit about GTA after it jumped to 3D - hipster, I know - and I couldn't care less about hoods, homies, gangstas and all that.
But I tried Saints Row The 3RD and it was freaking awesome. I had so much fun that with it that I really felt bad for judging it squarely on what it was showing up as.

The Legend of Zelda in general. I played Ocarina of Time once and found it to be boring and uninteresting at first. But then, months later, I gave it a second chance because I really wanted to know why everyone says it's the best game of all time, now I understand why. XD

GTA San Andreas, at first I thought this game was bad and overrated, but then I played it and immediately hooked to the game (I'm still playing it right now)

Left for dead series. I normally do not play online as i don't have that much free time. I would rather play (10-15) many single player games in a year, than spend lots of time on a few multiplayer games. And the single player was boring. After my friend urged me to play I was surprised at how much fun this series is. Two of my favorite games of all time

Knack

When i first seen gameplay for this game i thought meh this game is complete shit. I saw the reiews and thought aha i knew it was shit. Played the game and really enjoyed it.

Mad how things turn out

Back in the PS2/XB/GCN generation: Halo. I was still pretty young, and I had a PS2 and Dreamcast, and a PS1 and N64 the gen before. I wanted the PS1 and PS2 when I got them because they just had a bunch of awesome looking games (it really was true, for me at least, that PS = variety), wanted the N64 because it was cool to see Mario's jump to 3D, then Mario Party, WrestleMania 2000, Killer Instinct, and more. And a DC because it was the first in the next gen (PS2 followed out of continued support following PS1).

But for Xbox....there wasn't anything I wanted. Then all this hype came around Halo like it was the second coming of Jesus. The concept of a "system seller" hadn't existed for me yet (although Jak and Daxter did make me go "I need this" but that game wasn't super hyped or anything) so what's all this craziness over one game. I'd played shooters before, they can't be that great, right?

Well, finally got around to playing it and it was, indeed, extremely fun. I was young, man. But I didn't give it a chance, not because of the gameplay, story, graphics, etc. but the overhyping. By the same token of being young, I also understood the concept of something being too good to be true, and while Halo: CE was a great game, worth the many hours people put into it, I still personally don't think it was everything it was hyped up to be. But it's still a fun game to play