Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2 is the successor to the famous first-person shooting game that doesn't take itself seriously. You get to pick from one of several characters that have unique abilities to make short shrift of the game's futuristic enemies. Set on the planet of Pandora, you have to help the local population wage intense battles against Handsome Jack of the evil Hyperion Corporation to discover a vault full of advanced future tech.

The game uses a heavily modified version of Epic's Unreal Engine 3. It still runs in DirectX 9 mode, but offers plenty of appealing visual effects.