Board games depend a lot on taste. Are you more into eurogames (great mechanics, generally light on theme) or "ameritrash" (great theme, generally complex mechanics)? Do you want a heavyweight, longer game, or a lighter-weight, short game? Are you a fan of luck in games, or would you rather it was more skill-based? Do you like diplomacy as a game mechanic?

If you're just looking for a list of games to try, see http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame and start from the top.

Also, most (good) board game shops have an open play night where you can go in and check out whatever you want. This makes putting $80 down for that copy of Agricola much easier.

If you're in the greater Seattle area, Uncle's Games at Redmond Town Center has a game night on Fridays. They're also the best game shop around, imho (although I might be biased, they know me by name).

I'm from Belgium. :)

I'm pretty open and I guess I can't be disappointed by the top picks.

Yeah, I was lurking at Agricola and Puerto Rico but they seem similar to the Settlers of Catan (I may be mistaken).

If people like card games, I can also recommend the original Canasta. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canasta

I can seriously recommend Agricola. It features a very novel gameplay concept, and to make it even better, they have different sets of cards to adjust the games difficulty level. I've played Agricola about 10 times or so now, but I'm eager to play it more often. And there's not a lot of games that can do that.

PS. Hi from Netherlands ;)

Just ordered it, thx!