Hotline Miami is a stylistic, gory top-down game, and certainly one of the top games of 2012.
Hotline Miami tasks you, an unnamed protagonist, with killing every gangster inside a certain club at the behest of a shady voice on the answering machine. The kills are some of the most gory ever seen in video games; upon knocking an enemy down, you can perform all kinds of grim executions that are shocking and a bit unsettling. Where the game balances this shock factor is its style. The setting, late 80s Miami, takes its cues from the movie Drive; the music is a retro-electric fusion, the interiors very colorful, and the protagonist very much silent yet identifiable. Your character wears masks, similar to the protagonist in Drive at the end of the movie; while this ostensibly appear to be for avoiding attention, it might also be a way for him to separate himself from the killings. This idea is made apparent when the protagonist, after his first mission, throws up in a dirty alleyway, obviously disturbed at what he's just done. Whatever the reason for the masks, the game offers you a variety of animal-themed masks that give you certain benefits; one mask allows you to run faster, while another lets you start a mission with a knife already in your possession.
Even with the benefit of the masks, don't expect Hotline Miami to be an easy, ironman romp throughout. One hit from either a melee weapon or gun will kill you instantly, and you'll be forced to restart the stage. Fortunately, the game changes stages often, so you're never overly frustrated. As such, you're forced to improvise how you do things. You could take down an isolated enemy with a gun, but that would draw more attention than would taking him down with a melee weapon; however, this attention might allow you to lure in more enemies to take down at a bottleneck. However you clear the stage is up to you, although there seem to be certain strategies that work better than others. It's fun, though, to go through each stage, heart pounding and hand twitching, wondering whether this will be the time you finally beat the stage.
This game, along with FTL, is one of the best indie games I've played in a very long time, perhaps even the best. Its eclectic melding of contemporary retro style and violent gameplay is one of its defining characteristics, and it's not to be missed. A must-buy, especially for a mere 10 dollars.