I think you hit a good point here.
The games that hooked me from beginning to end are the games that I remember and look to find again.
For me this means almost the entire Sierra games collection from Kings Quest to Half Life.
Most of the Lucasarts games and a few D&D based RPGs Buck Rogers 1 and 2. Heroes of might and magic 1/2 And Warcraft 1-3.
I'm excited to see what HL2 is going to be like, as HL would prob have to be my favorite FPS.
But I'm honestly not expecting much, CS has made HL a huge phenomenon and theres no promise of another CS.
Things like CS are once a decade things for gaming and repeating it would probably come off as Super pacman did.
I own UT2K3 and find it extremely stupid. Fun but I'll take Q3A still, same exact thing IMO and more familiar (couldnt hurt).
Athlon 1700+, Epox 8RDA (NForce2), Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 80GB 8MB cache, 2x256mb Crucial PC2100 in Dual DDR, Geforce 3, Audigy, Z560s, MX500