Gaming

I'm going to assume that you haven't played the first two parts of Mass Effect, otherwise you'd have a pretty good idea of whether the game was for you. So my advice (if you decide that Mass Effect is for you) is start with the first part. The games have a fairly deep plot, so you'll enjoy it much more if you start from the beginning. Also Mass Effect 1 will be a lot cheaper so if you get it and don't like it'll be a smaller loss. One thing though: be prepared for sitting through a *ton* of dialogue (and a fair amount of reading) especially in the beginning, as the game establishes the plot and its universe.

Mass Effect is not an MMORPG, the first two games are strictly single player. The third game (I believe) has a multiplayer option, but it' only an option.

I've played both Mass Effect 1 and 2 and enjoyed them immensely (I also tend towards FPSs and don't like sword and sorcery type games, and only play single player), but I haven't gotten 3 yet because on PC it can only be run using Origin (EA's version of Steam), which I'm not keen on installing on my computer. That's also what you need the internet connection for because the game needs to be validated through Origin.

Otherwise, I just saw that Steam is having a sale on the Portal games. If you don't have them already I highly recommend them, though they are not first person puzzlers, not shooters. Otherwise you might want to look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution or maybe Fallout 3/New Vegas.