State of the union
DX10 still does not have much going for it. OpenGL has stalled a bit as well. To this end a 7XXX series card is more than adequate if you know what you are doing.
Apparently piracy is a now big thing which has resulted in a few more draconian measures. Still no problem to people who visit these sorts of sites mind you.
2gigs of ram is about good enough and most people have shifted to dual core processors (if only for the ability to run an OS and associated junk on one and use the other for games).
Most of the bigger console releases appeared on the PC, usually bigger and better than their counterparts.
A serious amount of work has been done on the modding front and probably represents you best bet for a good time this summer:
http://www.moddb.com/
As for actual games there were a fair few RTS/civilisation types titles but those I will leave up to others to fill in. I will mention the more obscure games if I have played them but it seems we are seeing the rise of eastern Europe (no bad thing as what we have seen so far has been interesting)
Mass Effect: RPG meets FPS and does not especially well (KOTOR with a few bells and whistles and minus some of the fun). Worth a look though.
Call of Duty 4: modern day arcade type FPS with a tactical edge. Some accuse it of being the best thing ever and it is worth a play in my opinion.
Lost Planet: average FPS touted as the reason for DX10 but fell flat.
Alas I am about to fall asleep on my keyboard so my retrospective of the last year is going to have to end before 3 months is done.
I made a similar thread a few months back myself which got some good replies though.
