Some really useful suggestions. I didn't know the first Fallout was ultimately short. I started it once, but uninstalled it as it had quite a slow start and I thought the whole game might take weeks if not months. DIRT is worth knowing about for a short racing game.

The secret with playing DOOM is to avoid looking for all the secrets! From my memory many of them could take forever to find.

I've built up this large Steam library of games that have been on offer over the past few years (I wonder how many people do this) and have got to the point where I know I'm never likely to get through them now. I'm starting to put a bunch of mostly short ones in a toplay folder. I have a few that have been suggested so far, though I installed Manhunt - I like older games - but it just wouldn't play on my new laptop (I wonder how often that happens with Steam games too).

@IvanElk:Maybe they didn't lock it because it's not date-relevant? Sometimes on forums you get called up for thread repetition, and then someone posts a link to the older thread. I got to the thread via anothre search engine for what its worth, where old pages can appear new simply because they reappear at the top of the generated list. It's a side effect of the way information is retrieved and presented I suppose.

@IvanElk: I didn't look at the date because for me that's completely irrelevant here, and worthwhile games short or otherwise are hardly just the most recent ones anyway. If you've got a link to something better (or more recent or whatever) then please give it - I just want to see some useful information on shorter-play games. They are all that probably millions of us have time to play.

Is the criteria here under 12 hours perhaps?

I'm not sure about Bioshock. Some people like to run through games rather 'gung ho' (and shoot everything in site rather than use stealth etc), but I think it's only fair to allow for reasonable exploration etc. The Half Life Stories never felt short to me, but maybe that's my perception. I certainly never felt short-changed, or that they should have been longer.

Also, I tend to play my video games on "Hard", which can make a serious difference to the game-length. These days I am prepared to give up and start again on "Normal", as dying all the time doesn't necessarily enhance the enjoyment of the game.

As a rule, the 'shorter' games on the PC tend to be console conversions, at least for the big 'First Person' type action games. PC owners have always expected more content than console owners, but I personally really value good quality console conversions. At their worse conversions are lazy 'ports', with poor frame-rates, downsized graphics and awkward controls, but at their best they are actually improvements on the original console versions. I do like my games shorter these days, as I expect a lot of adults my age do. I actually get quite concerned when reviewers essentially say "you can spend hundreds of hours picking up these gems" etc. I'd rather go Vegas and drink myself to death on the slot machines. Honestly, get a life.

A good console conversion was Call of Cthulhu (based on the Lovecraft book). It can be hard in parts, but is an excellent first person horror/story/part-time shooter with a nice 'gamey' engine. My memory of it was about 12 hours? It didn't feel that short, but I don't think I spend more than a few days playing it. The experience was like being part of a film. Outlast was another recent 'horror story' one I played (around 7 or 8 hours) and I enjoyed it, though it wasn't as good as Cthulu. It's good to know the Riddick game is a shorter one. I actually own it (I got it in a Steam flash sale once) so I'll install it and probably play it next.

I think these type of video games should be priced the same as watching films in the cinema. So if a fair average price for a watching a movie was 5 pounds for 2 hours (I know it can be less or more at times) - then a fair average price for a video game would be 20 pounds for 8 hours in my eyes. For the past 20 years video games have been quite similar to the film industry - conceptualisation, voice acting etc. Of course, they will eventually come down in price too, whether as DVD films or budget games.