I’m sympathetic about Borderlands. I’m still on the first one, haven’t played in a year or so, but it’s SO MUCH FUN. I always struggle a little with my desire to clear up my backlog mess - which, let’s be realistic, just isn’t going to happen in my case - and the desire to give in to the sheer joy of a good game. Which, IMHO, is what it should be about. But that’s just my rule-set, and I don’t mean to push it on others.

You’ve got Marie’s Room in your library - it’s a quickie, under an hour if you are more attentive than I am and don’t miss that one pesky item hanging there in plain sight grrr (one of the achievements is for spotting and clicking on all the active items). I enjoyed it; it’s pretty routine walking-simulator stuff, where you piece together bits of a life and then, at the end, it all plays out for you. You also have Puzzle Agent and Puzzle Agent 2, which are fun little episodes. Not too long, won’t change the world, but it’s fun stuff in a goofy way. They can also be played in short sessions if you are spending most of your time gunning away on Pandora.

Also, I loved everything about Half-Life 2, but I’m the right age for it and grew up with it when it was a technical marvel. The achievements are strictly long-haul projects, made to amplify game-play rather than rack up points on Steam, which some people hate. But it’s the ground on which so much of modern gaming was built.