Whereas many of my installments in this series contain nothing but C- games, this chunk contains some good ones. First off, Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe. Along with Beyond Good & Evil, Pixeljunk Monsters is one of those games that anyone who reads this site often must get sick of me talking about. I love the game. This year, I bought a PSP, and Pixeljunk Monsters Deluxe is nearly the only thing I’ve played on it. And you know what? It’s totally worth it. The game includes new towers, new monsters, and a whole new island. It’s essentially a third expansion pack that’s for the PSP only. As such, it’s one of my favorite games of 2011. It gets an A.
Next off, the Android version of Plants vs Zombies. I played the PC version of this game and got 100% of the Steam achievements, and then later went back to it to finish off new Steam Achievements that they’d added. And now I’ve got the mobile version on my phone. I hit some issues at first where the game would pause at odd intervals, but that was fixed by uninstalling all updates to Google Maps on my phone. Who needs GPS when there are zombies to fend off? There was a period of a month or so where I did without the Maps updates in order to play Plants vs Zomibes. The game is still great. B+.
Ahh, Portal 2. Definately one of my favorite games of the year. It’s become nearly forgotten amidst such fare as Skyrim and Arkham City, but I really do plan to go back and finish off that second run through the game some day. After all, I’m like 85% done and I still have achievements I want to get. The Smash TV and Overclocker achievements have me particularly intrigued, although I’ll probably never get most of the co-op achievements. I’ll just be happy if I can go back and run through the newest co-op levels.
The Portal and Half-Life series are Valve’s best and most valuable properties, and as such, I’ll buy (and probably love) every one they put out. Along with half of The Internet, I’ve been eagerly awaiting Half-Life 2, episode 3, but it’s looking more and more like we’ll never see that one. Half-Life 3 seems more likely. In any event, Portal 2 was a triumph. Again. A.
Portal was fantastic!
I enjoyed both single player and co-op campaign equally. I’m still waiting for that level editor so we can start playing some community levels! 
Did you try Dungeon Defenders? I picked it up a few weeks ago and I really like it a lot.. Easy to get into, levels take about 10-20 minutes, constantly rewarding and it’s a blast to play with friends! One of my recommendations of 2012!