Visually mesmerizing, terrifyingly bleak, and amazingly atmospheric, Limbo ($9.99) is one of the best examples of how the 2D side-scroller can be utilized for much more than vibrant hop-and-drop quests. As a young boy traveling through a shadow world, you'll overcome platform challenges, puzzles, and alarmingly large foes, all in a haunting journey that's left open to interpretation.

Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition ($39.99) is not only arguably the greatest superhero game ever created, but also one of the best Mac games period for satisfying beat-'em-up action and glossy production values. As the Dark Knight, you'll explore Gotham using his myriad gadgets while pummeling thugs, but it's the uniquely designed villain encounters that truly impress.

Brilliantly conceived and executed, Valve's Portal ($9.99) is a puzzler like no other, challenging you to use a portal-firing gun to move from one opening through the next and escape devious test chambers. Not only are the puzzle mechanics wonderfully innovative, but Portal is a remarkably funny game to boot. Start with the compact original, but if you dig it, don't miss the also-excellent Portal 2.

Point-and-click adventure gaming hit a new modern peak in 2012 with the release of the five-part The Walking Dead: The Game ($24.99), which takes its cues from the popular comic and TV series of the same name, but features new characters trying to survive the zombie uprising. Brutally horrific decisions mark each entry, and your tough choices impact the course of the remaining narrative.

What started as a minimalist world-building sim has become an absolute sensation, as Minecraft ($26.95) boasts tens of millions of avid users across various platforms. While placing pixelated blocks is simple enough, the game is so flexible that dedicated players can build massive castles and ships (or anything else) and share them online. Just be sure to watch out for those exploding Creepers!

Fantasy role-playing can be about much more than cartoonish mages and hours of cinematics, as evidenced by the gritty and gripping The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition ($19.99). As beast-battling Geralt of Rivia, you'll be engrossed in dozens of hours of non-linear (and adult-oriented) narrative, allowing you to forge your own path in the absolutely stunning world.

PopCap made its name on remarkably addictive experiences, and Peggle ($9.99) may be its defining work. Taking cues from pachinko and pinball, this colorful and enrapturing casual favorite finds you launching balls into each maze of pegs, aiming to eliminate the orange ones before running out of shots. It's deceptively gripping, and sequel Peggle Nights only expands the obsession.

Call of Duty: Black Ops ($49.99) pairs one of the series' most interesting single-player campaigns (set during the Cold War) with tremendously entertaining online multiplayer and co-op play. Black Ops' online combat spans a wide array of play modes and maps, with unlockable content awarded for consistent play, plus the co-op mode pits four players against waves of aggressive zombies.

More than eight years after its debut, World of Warcraft (free; subscription optional) is still one of the world's most popular online role-playing games. Why? The colorful scenarios and cooperative gameplay keep players grinding away and building their characters, and the move to a free-to-play model — with a subscription unlocking added content — makes it easier than ever to explore Azeroth.

What's more fun than bashing through piles and piles of comical foes as a cartoonish knight? Doing it with three local or online friends, as the rollicking Castle Crashers ($14.99) proves. Pick your palette-swapped warrior, strap on your weapon of choice, recruit a few trusted buddies, and start pummeling your way through the eye-catching hand-drawn environments. It's a total blast.

Who knew that a game about living life could be so darn compelling? Luckily, EA and Maxis had a hunch, and just like the previous entries did years ago, The Sims 3 ($29.99) makes it oddly fun to create an avatar and get to living. The formula has expanded, though, with significantly enhanced customization, added social features, and a wider array of new places to explore as a Sim.

Assassin's Creed II ($19.99) takes interactive historical fiction to all new heights -- quite literally. As Ezio Auditore, an Italian warrior in the 15th century, you can scale towers and run along rooftops with ease, all while stealthily executing evil leaders and skillfully dueling among large groups. But it's not all about past exploits, as the open-world title has a modern-day twist and a very surprising endgame.

What's most amazing about Team Fortress 2 (free) is not its well-balanced and exhilarating online shootouts or the wonderful cartoon-influenced visual approach, but rather the fact that nearly the entire experience is playable without a fee. With multiple player classes and maps, not to mention varied play modes, Valve's striking shooter is both great fun and an unbelievable value.

Like its notable predecessors, Sid Meier's Civilization V ($29.99) is something of a dream come true for strategy fans, but quite likely a nightmare for personal productivity. Civilization V is all about guiding your people through the ages on both micro and macro scales, making decisions and waging wars as time goes on, and the latest entry is the most accessible and beautifully designed to date.

Breaking the mold of the everyday shooter, BioShock ($19.99) delivers one of the most unique settings seen in a game: the underwater dystopian city of Rapture, where things have gone terribly awry with unhinged, genetically modified humans and armor-clad Big Daddy foes ready to pounce. It's as rich and thrilling a single-player shooter as any released on Mac or elsewhere.

For more than a decade, StarCraft was the gold standard for real-time strategy, so it was hardly a surprise when StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty ($29.99) debuted and became the new champ. Fantastic online play remains the key draw, with loads of customization and upgradeable units, plus the sci-fi settings look spectacular and the single-player campaign expands the narrative.

While we wouldn't recommend using sticky blobs of unknown origin to build your next house, they're fine fodder for the wobbly structures needed to solve puzzles in World of Goo ($9.99). This colorful indie favorite finds you connecting the titular balls to reach an exit, but zany stage layouts and obstacles make later levels a real challenge. Alluring visuals and epic tunes only add to the fun.

Even after eight-plus years of fantastic first-person shooters, Half-Life 2 ($9.99) remains one of the best ever created. The single-player campaign is filled with huge encounters, but it's the emotional performances that resonate the most. And once you wrap the main game, grab Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two to continue the adventure through shorter and punchier extra campaigns.

If the title doesn't tell you that Super Meat Boy ($14.99) is a very unique experience, perhaps the characters will: a meat cube hero, his bandage-based girlfriend, and their tux-wearing fetus-in-a-jar of an enemy. But while the premise is decidedly odd, it's the hard-as-nails 2D gameplay that makes the biggest impression, with refined controls and reflex-testing action to keep players hooked.

Yearning for a retro-stylized, side-scrolling quest? Cave Story+ ($9.99) uses the familiar formula of classics like Metroid and Castlevania to deliver a memorable, sprawling action game with charming pixel artwork and an incredible amount to see and do. While Cave Story started life as a freeware indie, this expanded and polished-up version is the definitive one, and well worth the scratch.

Even if you never played the original Deus Ex, a beloved and influential shooter from 2000, prequel Deus Ex: Human Revolution ($39.99) is pretty enthralling as a standalone action experience — one that blends shooting, stealth, and ample choice in a cyberpunk-themed future in which humans wield cybernetic enhancements. It's also a showcase game, meant to flex any high-end Mac rig thrown at it.

Blizzard's venerable series defined and popularized the dungeon-crawling RPG, but while Diablo III ($59.99) doesn't dramatically depart from the formula, it's the glossiest and most accessible entry to date. Smart tweaks to the customization aspects make it easier for newcomers to learn without killing its depth, while the core hack-and-slash and loot-amassing aspects still have that undeniable hook.

Gorgeous presentation and hypnotic storytelling make Bastion ($14.99) much more than a straight-up hack-and-slasher. The stunning hand-painted environments catch the eye in still images, but what makes the game so utterly captivating is its audio narration, which tells The Kid's tale as you live it. Stellar action and nicely customizable abilities also give it punch beyond the presentation.

Widely regarded as the best Star Wars game of all time, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ($9.99) uses the fertile sci-fi film series' universe as the backdrop for a wickedly deep role-playing affair, wherein you can guide your created hero down the path of your choosing. It's a decade old, but still an engaging experience that can easily support multiple, absorbing playthroughs.

You've never seen a fantasy world as vibrantly rendered as that of Trine 2 ($14.99), a side-scrolling action game that blends visual spectacle with entertaining three-player cooperative combat. Picking one of three distinct heroes and teaming up with local or online pals, you'll have to work in tandem to smash through large bosses and solve puzzles, as each character has very unique abilities.