LAN Party!
 

Yeah, I'm having a LAN Party for the first time in ages. Last time I had one was back in like 2000, so I'm unsure of what games are good for a LAN in this day and age. We're expecting about 10-12 people to show up, including myself, and we're restricted to PC and 360. As much as possible I'd like to keep the games easier to acquire and decently priced, so aside from a few exceptions like GeoW2, it'd be preferable if the games were kept <$50. All suggestions are welcome and there's not genre-restricting, so go nuts.
Thanks in advance to everyone who gives advice without offering some shitty game like Halo 3. Because there will be no Halo 3. Period.

e: I should probably mention that Team Fortress 2 was the first game to be put on the list. You can mention it still if you want, but I doubt anyone's about to jump out and say "No that's a terrible game don't play it".

Master Chief is slitting his wrists.
 

What amuses me about this is that the game is normally reviewed poorly for its campaign and story elements, hardly ever for its multiplayer.

And I bet you meant <$50, for under 50 bucks? If someone has a copy of Starcraft already, you should be able to spawn-install on other machines for a LAN -- but really you all should have that already. And it doesn't matter how old it is -- it's always good for a LAN.

Similarly, one person can get Sins of a Solar Empire and share that, albeit you shouldn't do it permanently, with others to play. Be prepared, though -- larger games take a long time. If there's any like of this kind of game, Homeworld will offer a quicker and somewhat similar type of gameplay and should be relatively cheap these days.

With that many people, you should be able to set up OK-sized teams for things off the Source engine, such as CS:S and TF2. Those should be reasonably within your ~$50 range, I'd think.

For the 360, I personally would recommend games from the Dead or Alive series and also Guilty Gear if there was any interest in fighting games. I am not a fan of Soul Calibur, but others might suggest that as well.

It's really going to be the FPS games that shine a bit more with the 360 if you want to get more than 4 players at a time.

Yeah I meant <$50, fixed now. Thanks for pointing that out.

Halo 3 is mostly the fact that none of us who would be bringing the 360s are going to go out and spend the $55-60 dollars on a game that honestly we'll probably never play again except for online, and 60 bucks is pricey for the experience. Plus we're going to have 5-6 360's so nobody complains about screen size split into fours, and I think there's only two of us that still actually own Halo 3.

Halo CE might come up though, since it's easy to acquire.

Soul Calibur 4 is a lot of fun, but I don't know how much it costs. If you get Soul Calibur 4 and give everyone like 5 minutes to create their own character, then you've got a night of awesome on your hands.

The Dawn of War games for PC are great fun too, plus you can get most of the expansion packs in a deal for like 40 bucks if I remember correctly.

Heroes of Might and Magic III. That will give you endless epic wars all night. It's easy to acquire, if you know what you are doing, and the original set of there (Game and 2 expansions.) is technically abandonware. Another company made the complete edition, and that is out somewhere. Also there is a fan created expansion In the Wake of Gods, that adds more onto it. Simply put it's fun. By the way, It's PC. Old PC, so any cpu can run it.

Also Starcraft, and I cannot think of anything for the 360. Sorry...

Warcraft III. Love it more than Starcraft. Line Tower Wars for the win.

AvP2.
Some of my best lans were quite recentely where we busted that out.
By far the best is hunt mode where everyone is a human except one player who is an alien and whoever kills the alien becomes the alien. Alll the levels are full of ventilation ducts and dark corners for the aliens to lurk in. And all the humans are trying to coordinate and wokr together (Stop moving! My motion senser is going nuts!) and the little bleeps of your motion sensor are totally onimous.
In a word: Awesome.

Gah! I read Warcraft III and instantly started thinking "Goddamnit, he'll suggest DotA." and then read the end and got relieved.

Warcraft III has some great maps for LAN parties, just...Don't play DotA. It's incredibly unbalanced.

Of course it is. Everyone knows that. I like my tower wars and whatnot. I play the anime equivalent of DotA every once in a while, but that's just so I can play a game where I'm Nabeshin.