Try Skyrim, and play archer / knife / illusion. You can come behind dudes and slit their throats, creep around an open area one-shooting baddies and when they finally detect you, go jedi-mode and tell them "it's ok i'm your friend"

It's fun and comes very close to those games

Iso 3D is a dead graphic genre though :(

Skyrim is noobified easy pop-crap, level-upping is too fast making game extremely easy even on max difficulty, all areas are linear with little gameplay design and no thinking required. It is insulting to recommend Skyrim for person who played games he listed.

"too fast"

dude not everyone has endless hours to play knighty knight on their computers. It's still 50+ hours to get a max level character

"no gameplay design"

I wouldn't call a game that offers that many possibilities in reaching your goals linear or "with little gameplay design". You can even do a lot of missions without killing anyone

"no thinking"

nigga please, it's not like Commandos or Jagged Alliance need a fucking phd, I could finish that shit at age 8

dude not everyone has endless hours to play knighty knight on their computers

Of course. So they dumb down and noobify the game for those casual players who don't have time to commit, that's why we get such a bad and shallow game in the end.

It's still 50+ hours to get a max level character

Levels don't even matter much. All the skills you need grow up so fast that game quickly becomes too easy, and the only kind of solution they were able to find is autoleveling which doesn't actually help and in addition to that looks just silly from role-playing point of view.

I wouldn't call a game that offers that many possibilities in reaching your goals linear or "with little gameplay design". You can even do a lot of missions without killing anyone

LOL, all "missions" are "go to next compass point and do the obvious thing", all dungeons are straight lines (even what they call "Labyrithian" is totally linear) with magical door at the end that always too conveniently happens to brings you back to start.
The whole game is more like passive consumption of story and visuals, and all "gameplay" that you are required to engage in is probably something that even a vegetable could easily do.

nigga please, it's not like Commandos or Jagged Alliance need a fucking phd, I could finish that shit at age 8

This doesn't move Skyrim off from its own level of dumbness.

Sadly, this!

But if you're desperate - try it, it's quite outstanding nowadays.

fallout tactics <3

frozen synapse

There is new XCOM

xcom?

I miss rsv :(

don't forget Thief!
but you have a valid point there. not too many 'brain' games out there.
today's games are all basically becoming a 'quick fix' for junkies and not to forget how monthly subscription business models are very popular now.

There are also new Jagged Alliance games, and people playing it with mods, but I didn't played. Some of them are on steam.

In future, there will be new shooter Takedown, founded by kickstarter.
http://serellan.com/portfolio/takedown/

There is/will be a lot of more realistic shooters, but I don't know if you wwant something like this ;) (Red orchestra, Arma etc)

Skyrim has nice mods too, redone, requiem, gems, step etc.

Thief 4 is comming, but for now it looks like shit for emo boys ;/ like new assasins greed.

try frozen synapse too.

X-COM
Deus Ex
System Shock
Thief
Dishonored (came out last year)
To name a few...

In general just look for games that are in what I call the 'emergent gameplay' school of developers; that is, games which give you a set of tools and allow the player to be creative with them, given certain parameters and limitations. Look for names like Looking Glass Studios, Origin Systems, Irrational Games, ION Storm, Arkane Studios, Harvey Smith, Warren Spector et al.

Yeah he's better off reinstalling the golden oldies. Deus Ex <3

splinter cell

Don't bother with X-COM, you'll vomit from the console feeling.

You could try JA2 1.13, it's like JA2 but improved. Quite challenging on insane and hard difficulties (well, you don't need phd to finish but at least it's not go and kill every single moving shit with one click)

play secret of mana or chrono trigger

QUAKE

The new Deus Ex was decent (about 1 or 2 years old)

Frozen Synapse
X-COM (play it on classic ironman if you think it is to easy)

coming soon: Space Hulk

if you like tower defense games, try out
defense grid
fantastic game

Battle Isle: Incubation . The forgotten gem of turn-based strategy games.