The original two Max Payne games are lovely and a favorite of mine to replay every few years or so, personally. They are very straight forward shooters though and can be a little hard at times, but extremely fun.
If you enjoy Sam's writing, you'd very much enjoy Max Payne 1+2. Experience where it started, as it were.
This version of Tetris likely has my most amount of hours on it as well, I played so much of it on my DS back in the day. Absolutely fantastic.
My runner up in terms of hours is probably Puyo Tetris.
Just a minor correction as I live in the area as well, Spring is the closest direct suburb of Houston which is anything but small town. Not excusing it of associated problems of being a relatively affluent/gentrified area in Texas, of course.
Reading through this thread, this guy is nuts though. That's a special brand of crazy.
I have a soft spot for Twist as well, it's a delightful little gimmick for Bejeweled. The music in that game specifically is surprisingly catchy, too.
If it was going to be anything like how the Artemis Fowl movie ended up being, y'all dodged a huge bullet. I'm still sad about AF.