Time of year for these kind of lists...

No question about my pick for the best expansion pack this year -- Europa Universalis III: In Nomine.

While I think Hearts of Iron 2 is my favorite of the Paradox Plaza games, EU3: In Nomine finally makes it a decent race. This is particularly notable after how flat the vanilla EU3 game was, which really didn't do it for me. But In Nomine (combined with the 2nd expansion, Napoleon's Ambition) adds much needed structure, UI, and gameplay that the base game was lacking. It's still a bit ugly in comparison to the older 2D Paradox games, but there's now a game there worth looking past the first-gen 3D. If you already have EU3 and were disappointed, that probably means you love the core Paradox gameplay and/or this slice of history -- both of which are much, much better served by the addition of In Nomine.

Honorable mention goes out to World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, which is easily the best new content for World of Warcraft. They've got their process down to a nice shine, yet aren't afraid to still try out a few new things. It doesn't change the base game, but it certainly provides more of the (great) same.

Not-so-honorable mention goes out to Sims 2: FreeTime and Sims 2: Apartment Life, both of which I would really love to play, but are a bridge too far for the aging Sims 2 engine. Load times between neighborhoods are approaching 3-5 minutes on my high-end gaming rig, and that's just beyond my threshold of pain. Here's to hoping Sims 3 gets that problem right.