What's your best unexpected buy of 2009?

Sure we have been waiting for most of these great games to come out this season, most of which have pleased the likes of us. But there were those Impulse buys or bargin bin deals that snuck up on us, which in some really great ways brought us unexpected joy. SO, what was the game that caught you by surprise this year?
 
For me it was Plants vs. Zombies, never thought i would own a pop cap game ever. But after seeing in on CO-OP I just went and bought it on steam without really thinking about it, (many of impulse buys of mine come from steam.) For $10 I felt I got my money's worth 3-times over and really enjoyed the game.

Easily Demon Souls for me....

Spectromancer. I've spent more time on that game than all of my higher profile titles combined. 

Dragon Age.
 
Wasn't all that interested because of the graphics, but it turned out to be a really enjoyable experience.

god of war collection, i didn't even know it was coming out. i bought it and it is great. the game only cost $40 and came with god of war 1, 2 and a demo for 3. they upgraded the graphics and added trophies.

Orange Box for $10 off of Steam. Some promotion they were running one weekend.

Kingdom of Keflings. Addiction has never been fun..ner.

SMT: Devil Summoner. I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but I certainly didn't expect to find it when I entered a gamestop earlier this week. Got a great deal on it too, as part of a buy two get one free thing 
@Matthew said:

" Ico for me.  Easily.  Picked it up for 20$ at a STOP for GAMES in near pristine condition.  Controls are slightly off/aged from 9 years ago, but the game is outstanding. "

Left 4 Dead 2. 
I thought it was old hat L4D1 in New Orleans. 
But I've spent more time on L4D2 than MW2, easily.

THQ pack, but really um QaurtZ was interesting.

Peggle. I'd heard people talk about it, and just kind of randomly bought it out of nowhere one day. I have since beaten 4 different versions of it and bought it for my computer even.

Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
I've always been a fan of Mario rpg's, but I didn't know that this was coming out until the actual day it shipped. So it was an extremely pleasant treat to have an amazing game show up that you had no idea was even in development.

Dragon Age: Origins.  I ordered that game as a time filler between Borderlands and Modern Warfare 2 (this is only after Dave raving about it).  I didn't expect to still be enjoying it.  It out lasted both Borderlands and Modern Warfare 2 (though I did take a good 2 week break from it for Assassin's Creed 2).

When I got a new laptop, I pretty much impulsively bought a few games on steam. Mirror's Edge, Borderlands, Mass Effect, Kotor, Saints Row 2.
These are games I didn't plan on every buying.

Either L4D2 or Dragon Age. Probably Dragon Age.

Dragon age, I had no intention of playing that game until it was cheaper on steam. Everyone kept talking about it and it was one of the best purchase i've made in 2009. Also for the ps3 which I also now have the pc version of batman arkham asylum, there was a deal where batman AA was only $38 the first day it was out. I bought it and it was fun, I later bought a copy on pc for sharper visuals. I also liked infamous, even if I have no intention of playing it again, it was actually fun.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. It was on sale yesterday for $2.50 on Steam and I was very curious about the game.

Too many to name.  I could say I was surprised by my purchase of both Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves on the same day, where beforehand I wasn't planning on playing either of them.

Killing Floor, Left 4 Dead 1, Madden NFL 10 (just now got into football games, they're pretty fun :O)  and I guess that's it.

borderlands

A few, but the best of the best would be Majesty 2. I've found it interesting ever since I saw the Quick Look on it, and the sale Steam had on it made it a must buy.
 
Easily one of my favorite games.
 
Others not as awesome but still good: World of Goo, Quantz, THQ pack, Madballs. Yup, everything pretty much from Steam. 
 
Majesty 2 still kicks their asses.

Not a game, but an Xbox 360. 
No RRoD yet, so, so far, so good. 
 
As for a game - House of Dead: Overkill was the biggest surprise for me.  It exceeded any expectation I had and has been the most fun I have had in a game this year.

Bayonetta... i was going to wait till it gets released in America, but i decided to import it, and i haven't even opened it. So it was an unexpected and bad buy...

Torchlight!

Civ Rev or Arkham Asylum

" SMT: Devil Summoner. I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but I certainly didn't expect to find it when I entered a gamestop earlier this week. Got a great deal on it too, as part of a buy two get one free thing 

Noby Noby Boy.

Modern Warfare 2.

50 Cent 2, bought it mostly as a joke and it ended up on my GOTY list.

Assassin's Creed 2, was not expecting it to be SOOOO much better than the first one. And Left 4 Dead 2.. just bought it last night and I am being blown away by the number of additional gameplay elements added in.

Torchlight.
Came out of no where (at least I don't recall hearing about it), released for cheap and was pure awesome.
I also loved quite a few XBLA games, like 'Splosion Man. 

As for proper big retail releases, I don't think any of them surprised me..  Dragon Age had a terrible marketing campaign, but if you looked past if there was clearly a very strong game behind it.  And again, many people (including myself) were pretty skeptical of Arkham Asylum but as it drew closer to release, it became more and more obvious the gameplay held up just as well as the concept.

Batman.

Assassin's Creed 2, Demon's Souls, or Torchlight.

Batman: Arkham Asylum.  The game wasn't even on my radar until a couple days before it came out.  It got such good reviews that I decided to buy it, and my goodness it was a damn fine game.

Dragon Age Origins. I had zero intention of buying the game originally, but after seeing Dave's video review of it and hemming and hawing for a day or so I caved and got it and boy am I glad I did. I haven't had a new game that I could sink over 100 hours into and still be enjoying it for quite some time.
 
I also feel I should mention Torchlight here. That game came out of no where and after seeing the videos for it I took agamble and pre-purchased it from Steam since it was so cheap and the editor gave it the potential to deliver more than it's moneys worth. Thankfully it was a gamble worth taking. The game is so much fun. I love it! It also really makes you wonder what's the hold up with Diablo 3 since Runic Games was able to produce Torchlight in less than a year. Granted Runic Games are the guys who created Diablo, but still.

" Dragon Age Origins. I had zero intention of buying the game originally, but after seeing Dave's video review of it and hemming and hawing for a day or so I caved and got it and boy am I glad I did. I haven't had a new game that I could sink over 100 hours into and still be enjoying it for quite some time.  I also feel I should mention Torchlight here. That game came out of no where and after seeing the videos for it I took agamble and pre-purchased it from Steam since it was so cheap and the editor gave it the potential to deliver more than it's moneys worth. Thankfully it was a gamble worth taking. The game is so much fun. I love it! It also really makes you wonder what's the hold up with Diablo 3 since Runic Games was able to produce Torchlight in less than a year. Granted Runic Games are the guys who created Diablo, but still. "

Left 4 Dead, I knew that it was immensely popular but didn't appeal to me that much but I saw it on sale on Steam and thought I'd give it a chance and although I don't love it as much as some people seem to (I've only played through each campaign twice), it was still a good purchase.

Dirt 2 and Shadow Complex

Borderlands as well

To be honest, I tought I was not going to buy MW2, but it is pretty good, but so far this year I bought mostly old games. BF 1943 surely was a good downloadable game.

KOTOR II. Awesome game.

MW2

I have yet to buy anything this year that wasn't expected.  I am a very calculating person.