Left 4 Dead 2 is probably my favorite co-op game. I think this game does a great job of having a lot of individual gameplay elements which on their own present interesting challenges (navigating around vs. crowning a Witch, dropping everything to fight a Tank, properly evading a Hunter, dashing through a crowd of zombies during a crescendo), which combines perfectly with the still-impressive AI Director, which does a really good job arranging those elements to form interesting combinations and generally keep the pacing of every mission exactly where you want it. It's immediately accessible, but has a lot of hidden depth (like crowning Witches, the high-risk, high-reward method to one-shot the deadliest enemy in the game by getting right up on her and hitting a specific spot in the nape of her neck with a shotgun).
My only complaint is that it's a hard game to play with a group with uneven skill levels. My old LAN party group all but banned this game because a lot of the people had barely played it and were still learning to navigate the maps, whereas I had all of them essentially memorized, including potential spawn locations for items.
Titanfall 2 is my favorite competitive game, although Respawn has almost outdone itself with Apex. The movement is just so so so so good, which contributes to an overall excellent sense of pacing. Maps feel grandiose and epic without the Battlefield problem of "oh I guess I'll drive across the map for five minutes to get to where the action is", and the sheer act of moving around is tons of fun. Populating a shooter map with AI was honestly a stroke of genius, because it does the triple duty of making the map always feel action-packed, always giving you something to shoot, and giving low-skill players something productive to do other than chasing other Pilots. The quality and fun of the movement alone would make this one of my favorite games, but the Titan v Titan and Titan v Pilot meta-play adds a whole other level.
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is my favorite fighting game. It has the frenetic energy of an anime fighter without being completely unparseable (seriously try to explain Guilty Gear mechanics to someone they're gibberish), and a really fun roster of serious picks and extreme goofball meme characters together, each of which is mechanically unique and interesting to the point where this game feels like an infinite web of possibility.
Phoenix Wright is in this game, and you can win a fight by convicting your opponent of murder. How is this not the greatest fighting game ever made.
Special shout-out to Section 8: Prejudice, which never got the love it deserved due to be shackled to Games For Windows Live. It was basically just Better Battlefield. You airdropped into the level at every respawn, which led to interesting meta-play around building anti-air turrets to shoot respawning players out of the sky. It solved the "on the other side of the big map from the action" problem by just letting you run very fast. On top of normal "capture the point" Conquest-style objectives, the game would randomly generate mini-objectives throughout the match that would help spice up the match or turn the tide, from escorting an NPC VIP across the map to having to hunt down every member of the enemy team within a time period.
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