Alright well after reading your reviews, I can see where much of your choice came from, excluding God of War and the Sly collection, both of which I have not played. Its an interesting list, I agree with the enjoyment of Fable, Mass Effect [my personal game of the year] and Assassin's Creed. As for Bayonetta, I didn't enjoy my time with it, but I'm not really into a 3rd person [though I don't want to use this term with this game, due to it deviating from it quite a bit] hack and slash games. Vanquish, your review and many others have finally gotten me to actually install it, or rather at least the demo onto my 360 to try it out.
Finally I'll add my own 7 just to compare
7: Fable III
6: Mafia II
5. Halo Reach
4: Metro 2033
3: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
2: Fallout: New Vegas
1: Mass Effect 2
Finally addressing your statement on Western gaming focusing on exposition and story, I think you mostly will see this in RPGs, rather than most Western games. Western shooters and other such things continue to try to make stories, but with their shorter campaigns I cannot feel anything but gipped that they can even claim to have a story. I'm with you, if I assume correctly, that a good mindless shooter or brawler can be fun as well, we don't need stories in everything.
I do maintain loving them in my RPGs, but at the same time I'm looking forward to both Duke Nukem and Bulletstorm
Good review, would have liked more details rather than videos but none the less got the point across.
