Recently, I got several games on Steam, due to the awesome sale prices.
Portal: free, a while ago. I beat this one just recently–around 2010-07-03, I guess. Awesome, awesome game. I’ve got 6/15 achievements.
Beat Hazard: $2.49. Neat game, and worth the price. I have 13/25 achievements.
Audiosurf: $2.50. Another cool music game. I have 2/17 achievements.
Torchlight: $5.00. At that price, who could resist it? I've got 9/67 achievements. My saves were even compatible, so onward I go.
Civilization 4 complete: $9.99. Civ 4 provides enough gameplay that, compared to movies or something, $10 per playing session wouldn't really be overpriced. $10 for the whole set (Civ 4, Civ 4: Colonization, Civ 4: Beyond the Sword, and Civ 4: Warlords) is a totally good deal. I spent four hours playing it last night. I was playing on easy, and it was indeed very easy. I'll have to play on the next difficulty up next time. I was about ten turns away from getting a diplomatic victory (by having enough votes to just vote myself in) when the game ended and I got a time victory instead. I wasn't far off from a domination victory (is that right? Having most of the map and population. That one.), either. Great game, but at 4 hours for an easy game against a few computers, I remember why I stopped playing before. It takes so long! Still, I'm sure I'll play it enough to get my money's worth.
All told, I spent about $20 during the sale on several extremely worthy games. I'm satisfied with the value I'm getting, which is unusual. Definitely I'll make sure to put aside some money for the next sale like this. Who knows what gems might reveal themselves? There were lots of other great games at great prices, though I already owned several: they had Freedom Force and its sequel for less than $2 for the pair, but I already own Freedom Force. They had similar extremely low prices on various shooters and other games of types I don't like, so not much temptation there. Still, a dollar or two isn't two much to pay for even a less-than-stellar game, so I'll look forward to next time.