I've been out of PC games for a long time because I got tired of having to upgrade my machine for the next awesome game to come out, so I stuck with consoles.
However, I like to play older PC games still. Right now I'm playing Railroad Tycoon 3, because I just found out they had an expansion pack for it. 
Prison Architect. It's an early access game available on Steam- I bought it in Alpha so its free for me, forever now. I also REALLY like Garry's Mod, and If you like Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon, or the OpenTTD opensource version are good calls. You said you were stuck on older hardware, so I won't tell you how kickass Borderlands 2 is. Try and find a build of a game called Ultimate Stunts- it's abandonware at this point, but it's pretty fun. I also really liked 4x4 Evo II, also considered abandonware at this point- good stuff. I figured out how to cheat the game. I made trucks that broke the physics engine. I have probably 100-150 games on my PC, so it's hard to tell. Those are just some of the more obscure gems. ALSO- Terraria. Terraria is amazing.
Carmageddon II is stupid fun on older machines
Left 4 Dead 1&2, Borderlands 1&2, Payday. Payday2 isn't nearly as good. Really enjoyed Halflife and CounterStrike. You don't need the latest and greatest every time. My machine is 3 years old and cost less than a console to build. The one it replaced still did the job, but was aging at 5 years, the tech was old when it was built.
Assetto Corsa, Race Rooms - DTM Experience, Game Stock Car 2013, Formula Truck. All new releases for the PC. All of them are top notch driving sims. DTM and Game Stock car have some of the most amazing FFB and physics.
I just grabbed State of Decay in the Steam holiday sale for $14. I've heard good things. Other games... Mass Effect 1&2, Civ 1&4&5, Sky rim (one of the best games ever), GTR / rFactor / GTL / a whole slew of racing games, a bunch of steam sales and humble bundle games which collect virtual dust.
I've been "playing" iracing a lot, trying to get good at driving the Barber track before the coming Lemons race there. (no practice day, boo)
I have a recently purchased gaming PC to run iracing and really don't know what else to play on it. I love Empire which is a super old strategy game, the predecessor to Civilization. Any good recent strategy games out there??
When is the Lemons race at Barbers? I am local and would like to come watch and maybe crew.
I don't know about current strategy games, but it played age of empires 2 a lot, and empire earth 2. If they are still available they should be dirt cheap because of age.
If you like the retro look I suggest minecraft. It's cheap, kid friendly, and highly addictive. Despite the look, it needs a somewhat more powerful machine, though. Mine is 4.5 years old and I've been upgrading here and there and it can handle max settings without mods at least. That's the other thing, all mods are free, and every couple months an update comes with additional content, also all free. It only costs £20 too, so it's cheap compared to other new games. No cars, but there is a mod for that.
I found my old copy of Freelancer last week. I forgot how in depth that game is. It's a great space shooter with a very robust economy. Also DooM III has been getting a lot of attention lately too. I love me some classic FPS 
Hntsvl_E30 wrote: Assetto Corsa, Race Rooms - DTM Experience, Game Stock Car 2013, Formula Truck. All new releases for the PC. All of them are top notch driving sims. DTM and Game Stock car have some of the most amazing FFB and physics.
Where did you get the DTM game?
BradLTL wrote: When is the Lemons race at Barbers? I am local and would like to come watch and maybe crew.
It is February 1st and 2nd. Tech inspection on Friday 1/31. Exact info here:
http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/events-results/2014/article/121-shine-country-classic
It'll cost you $30 to get in the gate but that gets you in all weekend and you can hang out and party with us if you'd like! I'll be driving the turbo RX7 with wvumtnbkr. It's gonna be a fun race.
Euro Truck Simulator 2 is far more enjoyable than the premise suggests.
I've been working over SimRaceway. It's pretty good. The free to play and buy cars kinda sucks you in though 
I'll spent about 50 bones for add-on cars.
Euro truck simulator 2 and kerbal space program here
My gaming PC's mobo died in early 2013, in late 2013 I got a new mobo and CPU which I thought was enough to get the PC running, then found that my video card was failing and I haven't been able to afford a new one since.
Stuff I can still play with onboard video:
F1 2013...hardest racing game I've ever played. Still trying to get through the first race without turning the difficulty below the second hardest.
Retrovirus (fun LAN Co-op)
Splinter Cell, original - I often play through old games
Stuff I was also enjoying before the PC went kaput:
DMC5...already played through it 3 times, I think I did the hardest difficulty last.
NFS:S2U, finished with difficulty maxed, about as hard at the end as the start of F1 2013
Assassin's Creed 1 but I was getting bored with the repetitiveness anyway.
Stuff I wish I could have started::
Quantum Conundrum
Bioshock Infinite
Crysis 3
Far Cry 3
Prototype 2
GameboyRMH wrote: Quantum Conundrum
This is a fantastic game.
I will admit, I only play one game on my PC. Working in the computer world, I really do not spend alot of time on the computer at home. That being said. I play rFactor. The group I race with on a weekly basis are great. We run different mods, find the track the F1 circus runs. It is really good. Last F1 season we aran the last turbo era F1 cars from 1988 or so.
I occasionally jump in an mess around with Kerbal Space Program:
(This pretty much sums up the early attempts at the game for most people)
If you have any interest in rockets or space travel Kerbal is EXCELLENT fun. Pretty much a light version of a space program simulator. Still in development but very playable and give you huge respect for some aspects of space travel (e.g. orbital intercepts and docking... argh!!)
I've been wanting to get into rFactor for the online play...hmm that should run on my PC as-is...
rFactor; the original one is starting to get long in the tooth sort of speak. I haven't upgraded my desktop in about 5 years, and when I built it, it was with old tech. The downloads that we use are starting to get bigger as the tracks are now being taken from newer game versions and are bigger and more detailed. If you download the original rfactor and use it, you should have no problem. We are finding that rFactor 2 is alot less user friendly and harder to create car sets and tracks.
If you want to run with us, let me know and I will see if we can send you the link to download the track and new car set. We just started testing the DP and P2 TUSC mod. They are very equal, the way we have it configured. Driver ability as always plays a role.
Mike
In reply to aircooled:
That looks cool but $27 for a game that is still under development seems steep.
I recently got the first 2 Fallout games and the original Thief. I also just got in parts for a new system so I haven't played either much.
singleslammer wrote: In reply to aircooled: That looks cool but $27 for a game that is still under development seems steep.
I thought that also, but I have heard nothing but great things about it. One of these days I'm going to give it a shot.
It goes on sale on Steam pretty often. You should be able to spend a good amount of time on the the demo alone:
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