Pick up The Orange Box (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orange_Box). It includes Half Life 2, (plus the two sequel episodes), and Portal. Portal is a fantastic game, with a surprising amount of story given the fact that it appears at first to be a fairly simple puzzle game. Half Life 2, is a great first person shooter, again with great story.

What I like about these games is that they're immersive, without being overly long or tedious. You can play through Portal in a few evenings, without feeling like you're missing out on hundreds of side quests. The gameplay is tight, fun and innovative.

The Orange Box is a fantastic collection of games. I can also recommend Portal 2.

However, if you have a friend who likes first person shooters, you could play through one or more of the Gears of War games in cooperative split-screen mode. I hate, HATE, HATE playing FPSs on consoles, but I had a blast playing Gears in coop. It was the first console FPS I'd ever played where

* the gunplay felt good

and

* I didn't find myself longing for a keyboard and mouse after two minutes of play.

Indeed, the combat works really, really well with a controller.

I don't know how the game has held up over the years, but it was lots of fun back in the day.

Gears of War is not a first-person shooter, though.

Bah, you're right. I lump FPSs and TPSs into the same bin in my head, even though they're a bit different, and that it appears that the latter is much less nausea inducing.

If you like, change FPS to "shooter" everywhere it appeared in that comment.

The Last of Us. Best game I've ever played.

It felt like I was playing Half Life 2 while watching a zombie movie. I guess it's hard to make a recommendation without knowing what this dude likes in games.