Banished is sorely underrated, and not just because it was made by one guy, but because it's genuinely one hell of a fascinating, addictive city-builder. It's a bit on the difficult side at first, but stick with it.
I'll add to the general goodwill towards Freedom Force. That game was terrific.
Silent Storm has some problems, mainly due to technical glitches when you bring down an entire building on an item you need for a mission, and it's almost insanely difficult without cheesing it, but it's a good turn-based squad tactical combat game, not entirely unlike X-Com or, more appropriately, Jagged Alliance 2.
Speaking of which, anybody who gamed back in the day is probably going to say it's not a hidden gem, but Jagged Alliance 2 is a fantastic game. You hire a team of mercenaries and set them loose on a giant island divided up into a bunch of smaller sectors. It's turn-based squad combat at its absolute best. I like it more than I like XCOM (or X-Com, for that matter) because all the mercenaries have personalities and quirks. Again, it's a difficult game made for a different era, but if you can handle the challenge, it's deep and fun.
Defender's Quest looks like ass, but seriously, it's some of the best tower defense gameplay out there. The RPG mechanics add a lot of depth.
Omerta got shit on upon its release, and to this day, I'm still not sure why. The gameplay is a mix of a city-builder and turn-based squad combat. Sure, it's rough around the edges, it never quite gets the best elements of either of its genres, and the voicework will make you cringe, but I put about thirty five hours into it and I regret none of it.
Recettear is a really weird shop simulator combined with kind of a crappy dungeon crawler, but the elements wind up blending together pretty well. I do wish the artstyle and writing weren't so horrible, and I refuse to play the game with the sound on, but it's a pretty addictive game once you get into it. Be warned, though - it's pretty heavy on the anime bullshit.
Again, a lot of people played this one on release, but you don't hear Titan Quest mentioned much anymore, despite being a fantastic Diablo 2-esque game. The lack of support post-release is the stuff of gaming legend, but the original product is relatively solid (you'll maybe want to bone up on some class basics before getting too deep).
Space Rangers 2 is sorely underrated. It's immensely hard to describe what this game is, because it's so many things packed into one. At the core, you fly a spaceship around on a 2D plane, taking on missions, selling cargo, fighting aliens, and upgrading your ship bit by bit. But this is all done with a variety of different gameplay elements, including an RTS, text adventures, and straight-up arcade styled shoot-em-upping. Almost no one remembers these games even exist, which is a travesty. They're hugely entertaining.
The Blackwell games (and really, Wadjet Eye's games in general) have a ton of heart and some pretty solid classic adventuring gameplay with some intelligent, non-abrasive puzzles. These folks are not praised enough for their continued forays into creating immensely playable adventure games with modern sensibilities with a deeply nostalgic look and feel.
Pendulo Studio's adventure games can be hit and miss. The original Runaway was terrible, but stick with it and jump into its sequels, and it becomes sort of a hidden treasure of a series. Yesterday was dark and kind of brilliant, if a bit short, and The Next Big Thing had admirable spirit, even if the puzzles were irritating.
The Broken Sword games don't get mentioned with the same kind of reverie as LucasArts or Sierra, and while there are reasons for that, the games are perfectly serviceable and occasionally great. I don't believe 4 is available on Steam, but I think it's on GOG, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, yeah, the artwork in the early games still holds up remarkably well. Hand drawn backgrounds will never not look great.
Hector is a stupid game made kind of awesome by din of its refusal to admit it's a stupid game. Produced by Telltale (but not developed by them, Lordy no - and whatever happened to Telltale's publishing arm, anyways?), it's the kind of adventure game that makes you remember why the genre died down, but oh man, it's got such a weird, blatantly offensive sense of humor that it's hard to look away. I'm not sure if it's even bundled with Telltale's games anymore, but if you can nab it, give it a shot if it's cheap.
Jolly Rover is a weird little knockoff of Monkey Island, but it's entertaining enough for a couple of hours.
Organ Trail is broken, buggy, and a ridiculous pain in the ass to control. It's also fantastic. It's Oregon Trail with zombies. Just go buy it.
There are other great older games available on Steam too, like the Space Quest, Might and Magic, and King's Quest collections, but I'm a little hesitant to recommend them to absolutely everybody. They're all certainly great games (well, some of them in the collections, anyways), but maybe look them up first before you purchase so you know what you're getting into.
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