The 2010 Game of the Year is Super Mario Galaxy 2.
The runner up is Xenoblade Chronicles.
The master thread for all of these contests can be found here.

Welcome to the 2010’s, the final decade for this thread series.  Without going into the details, much of this decade is a decline of what came before, and I’ll leave it at that for now.

Especially since none of that has anything to do with the year 2010, which was a great year for gaming.  The Wii was still getting high profile releases.  The two HD systems were also really coming into their own, getting a good amount of quality games both in 2010 and in several following years.  Motion control games also launched for the HD systems in this year, but none of those games are in the poll.  So, without further ado, here is the list of games for 2010:

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (PC/Mac)
This highly anticipated sequel to the game that conquered South Korea scored a 93 on Metacritic and sold over 6 million copies worldwide.

Mass Effect 2 (XBox 360/PC)
ME 2 is often considered the high point of the Mass Effect trilogy.  It released on PS3 a year after the XBox 360 and PC release.  The XBox 360 version of the game scored an impressive 96 on Metacritic, and the game has sold over 7 million copies worldwide across all platforms.

Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3/XBox 360/Wii/DS/PC)
Call of Duty reaches its sales peak for Generation 7 selling well over 30 million copies across all platforms.

Red Dead Redemption (PS3/XBox 360)
People called it GTA in the old west, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing at all.  This open-world adventure about former outlaw, John Marston, scored a 95 on Metacritic and has sold over 23 million copies.

God of War III (PS3)
Kratos goes HD for the first time scoring a 92 on Metacritic and selling over 5.2 million copies.

Heavy Rain (PS3)
This experimental PS3 game sought to break new ground when it came to storytelling in games.  It has sold over 5.3 million copies total.

Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
Donkey Kong just had to return after the huge success of 2D Mario in the previous year.  Donkey Kong Country Returns has sold over 6.5 million copies.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
So many ideas were left out of the first Galaxy game, that they had to create another 3D Mario on the same system.  One of these ideas was including Yoshi for the first time in a 3D Mario game.  This game scored a 97 on Metacritic and sold over 7.4 million copies.

Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)
This is a timeless tale about a boy, a girl, some giant robots and a sword that can see the future.  For some reason Reggie Fils-Aimé didn’t think this game would be relatable to Americans.  Luckily, Operation Rainfall helped bring this game to North America, although it didn’t reach there until 2012.  Xenoblade Chronicles scored a 92 on Metacrtic and has sold over 3.3 million copies across all platforms (including the definitive edition).

Other (please specify)
If you think another game deserves to be "Game of the Year" other than one of the 9 I listed above, then please vote “Other” and say your game in the comments.  If the "Other" category takes at least 2nd place and no other game gets at least 40% of the vote, then I will do a runoff vote including the most mentioned game(s) from the comments.

Voting for 2010 Game of the Year will end on Monday, Nov 27 at 11:59 PM, EST.

Tough choice between Black Ops and Mass Effect 2. Both are among some of my favorite games of all time. I'll give the nod to Mass Effect 2, very few game stories left me feeling a sense of epicness that Mass Effect 2 did.

There are a whole lot of noteworthy games that didn’t make it into the poll this year, including a Pokémon game.  Also, while Final Fantasy XIV is mentioned below, it is the sucky 1.0 version of the game.  A Realm Reborn, the rebooted version of FFXIV, will be available for voting in 2013. 

Here are some other notable games for 2010:

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade (Arcade)
Chaos Rings (Mobile)
Civilization V (PC)
Final Fantasy XIV (PC)
Octodad (PC)
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (PSP)
God of War: Ghost of Sparta (PSP)
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (PSP)
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PSP)
Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (PSP)
Valkyria Chronicles 2 (PSP)
Mario vs Donkey Kong: Miniland Mayhem! (DS)
Pokémon Black/White (DS)
Radiant Historia (DS)
Shantae: Risky’s Revenge (DS)
Dance Central (XBox 360)
Fable III (XBox 360)
Kinect Adventures! (XBox 360)
Limbo (XBox 360)
Super Meat Boy (XBox 360)
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (PS3/XBox 360)
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (PS3/XBox 360/PC/Mobile)
Bioshock 2 (PS3/XBox 360/PC)
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (PS3/XBox 360)
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (PS3/XBox 360/Wii/PC/Mobile)
Nier (PS3/XBox 360)
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (PS3/XBox 360/PC/DS/PSP/Mobile)
Rock Band 3 (PS3/XBox 360/Wii/DS)
Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game (PS3/XBox 360)
Vanquish (PS3/XBox 360)
Gran Turismo 5 (PS3)
Joe Danger (PS3)
Sports Champions (PS3)
Epic Mickey (Wii)
Just Dance 2 (Wii)
Kirby’s Epic Yarn (Wii)
Michael Jackson: The Experience (Wii)
Sin and Punishment (Wii)
Sonic Colors (Wii)
Wii Party (Wii)

For the longest time, 2010 felt like the year where none of the games I had played were worthy of GotY status. Until I played Xenoblade Chronicles last year

I can't decide. Black Ops is one of my favorite shooters. Mario Galaxy 2 was amazing. Xenoblade Chronicles... Well, I haven't finished it, but what I played was incredible.

From outside the list, Sonic Colors and Epic Mickey were both great games as well.

Definitely not DKC Returns, though...

This was a phenomenal year, with all three consoles delivering the goods.

With so many terrific games it's a tough call, but ultimately I have to go with Super Mario Galaxy 2. From its wildly imaginative game design to its divine music, it's a worthy followup to its legendary predecessor.

Also, I feel like Halo Reach deserved to be one of the nominees here.

Undoubtedly God of War 3.

That game still holds well over 10 years from its launch, it was such an amazing game, I can still remember how shocked I was with it back then.

That game was the coolest thing ever when it dropped.

Mass Effect 2, with Limbo a close second. Mass Effect 2 was the peak of its franchise - before the writing took a nose-dive in 3 and then the entire franchise fell apart in Andromeda - with great characters, excellent narrative & world-building, strong visuals & art direction, and solid gameplay. It basically realised the potential of the first game.

StarCraft 2 by a mile! 12 years in the making and did not disappoint! Absolutely epic.

Got immediate chills the first time I heard “hell….it’s about time”

Hard to choose between Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Mass Effect 2.

Went with Super mario Galaxy 2 but have to say ME2 was amazing.

God of War 3, Red Dead Redemption and DKC Returns are all equally great games too.