The original two Max Payne games are lovely and a favorite of mine to replay every few years or so, personally. They are very straight forward shooters though and can be a little hard at times, but extremely fun.

If you enjoy Sam's writing, you'd very much enjoy Max Payne 1+2. Experience where it started, as it were.

This version of Tetris likely has my most amount of hours on it as well, I played so much of it on my DS back in the day. Absolutely fantastic.

My runner up in terms of hours is probably Puyo Tetris.

Just a minor correction as I live in the area as well, Spring is the closest direct suburb of Houston which is anything but small town. Not excusing it of associated problems of being a relatively affluent/gentrified area in Texas, of course.

Reading through this thread, this guy is nuts though. That's a special brand of crazy.