Any of the classic valve games (half life, portal, and their sequels). If auto shooters are your thing, vampire survivors is less than a small coffee. Dead space (the remake) is $15. Halo MCC is $10. Titanfall 2 is $3. The “new” tomb raider trilogy are all less than $5 each or get the bundle. Alan wake is $5. Prey is $3. And Batman Arkham origins is $2.

Just a handful of good games for cheap. There’s many more out there.

From that list :

• Keep talking and nobody explodes: incredible fun with friends, even better if the help has the documents physically printed, there's this magic that happens when you frantically search for the right page and try to keep calm
• Titanfall 2 : worth it just for the campaign, I don't know about the state of multiplayer anymore (servers are back i think, no more need for a custom client), I last played it last year, people were understandably sweaty, movement and gameplay is unparalleled
• Vermintide 2 : in its best state ever it seems, hours of fun and great challenges, interesting mods for qol and to add to the game's longevity, I dream of when Darktide will reach that point- Firewatch : nice story, beautiful art direction, ending is "controversial" in that it is kind of abrupt with little payoff, but the journey is great, imo a really good walking simulator
• Metro Exodus : superb open world, great conclusion to the series, pays off even more if you read the book, day night cycle, each map feels handmade given the amount of details, best "skewmorphic" interface in games

Edit : fuck me i edited my comment and accidentally deleted the paragraph about Firewatch, tldr beautiful art direction

Grim dawn is the best arpg of all time imo even better than d2

Shamelessly copying my comment:

In order,

Chorus - AA paranormal 3d spaceship combat game
Cyber Hook - First person grapple hook platform racer
Tangle Tower - Charming point and click detective game
Patch Quest - Bullet hell roguelike
Subsurface Circular - Robot murder mystery visual novel
Yes Your Grace - Addictive story driven king resource management game
They Bleed Pixels - Brutal 2d action platformer
Devil Daggers - Single arena fps where you try to survive 500 seconds (and fail)
Loop Hero Soundtrack - The game is pretty well known, but its soundtrack is amazing enough to buy or pirate even if you don't want to play it

Ballionaire is a pretty great stoner game. It's a pachinko roguelite--excuse me, autobonker

South Park: The Stick of Truth is a great RPG. You don't have to be a South Park fan to enjoy it, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

Cant go wrong with Grim Dawn. One of the best modern arpgs with regular huge updates, expansions and modding support.

Xcom 2 complete for like 10 or so. Excellent deal

Picked up Firewatch and Divinity Original Sin 1&2.

FW is a short and sweet walking sim. Well worth the £1.60 or whatever I paid for it.

No opinion on DOS yet because I doubt I'll play that before the new year.

The Binding of Isaac Rebirth Complete Bundle as well as its individual components are at a new all time low. The game is an absolute classic and IMO it's still the best at what it does. It's perfect on the Steam Deck too.

If you like the base game I highly recommend all the DLCs. Besides a ton of new content they also add many quality of life changes that make the game even more enjoyable.

These are the ones I was interested in.

I went for a few bundles because I already owned thief sim and one of the metro games, so the bundles were an even better deal.

I checked the steam db website and a lot of these were all time low.

Patient in that it came out way back at the beginning of twenty ‘ought twenty-four, cheap in that its fifty percent off; the new prince of Persia game is precisely correctly priced at twenty dollars and fun as hell.

Pillars of eternity series. $25.

Europa Universalis Ultimate is like $45 Gonna see if i have the patience for that map game madness.

Planetcoaster for 1,89€ is hard to beat

From The Depths.

Half off, stupid time sink.

The Last Case of Benedict Fox being around 90% off was the only one with an acceptable price tag for me. Got it even cheaper via a bundle because I already owned Arise.

My suggestion for the steam winter sale is chech out the GOG winter sale. But maybe that's just me.

The Owlcat Pathfinder CRPGs aren't on the deep discounts list, but Kingmaker is 85% off ($2.99) and Wrath Of The Righteous is 70% off ($11.99). Both are solid games.