OP

Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:

Thanks for the replies guys... keep it coming! I have a few ideas (below) but wanted to know what you guys would recommend.

Never played a White Water... but I am not a fan of TZ... one of the few. I'll have to look out for a WW to try.

Seems like a fun game, but TWD is forbidden in my house because my little kids (2,5,7) are scared of the machine... as in they are terrified of the corner of the local pinball parlor that has one. I will look harder into that one in a few years.

This one's high up on my list. I've played one and it seemed like fun. Seemed like there were alot of posts fairly close to the SDTM drain. Will keep this one in mind and it is in my top 5 for a third machine.

Not insane NIB BBB prices, but something along the lines of a new pro Stern or equivalent in price.

Deffinatly on the list. Need to find one near me to try... I haven't played one since I was a little kid.

I'm that one wierd guy on Pinside that is not into band themes...

I have not played too many single level games. The one's I have played are all really slow and too boring for me. TNA was fun, but I'm not a buyer on that one.
As far as things I like... I actually like most pinball games. The only game I've ever played that was just not fun was Shrek. The only newer game that I thought I'd really like that I just can't get into is DP (there is a LE at my office).
As far as what I'm considering (down the road), I have the following in my sights.
1. JP. It's (relatively) cheap, could hold it's value if I just kept for 6 months, and I'd probably get tired and sell it back but it's a dinosaur theme and my kids are currently obsessed. Would also be fun to try a game on two different codesets. Keep the original code a while then switch it out to the CHAD 6.0 code. It's also fun to tinker with older machines to a point.
2. GOT. Obsessed with the theme having read the entire ASOIAF 3 times now. Fun game with a complicated ruleset that may go the distance in a home setting.
3. TAF. Everybody loves this for obvious reasons. May be hard to maintain long term. As said earlier, I like tinkering with old machines, but only when my tinkerings produce consistant results. My experience with fixing up my WCS was fun, but the game wasn't deep enough (or hard enough) to keep me engaged. Played it a bunch at my parents arcade as a kid.
4. STTNG. Wife is obsessed with ST. This one's fun, but play wise and theming wise this one may be too similar to Stern ST. It is also a machine I remember playing alot at my parents arcade as a kid.
5. Hobbit. Super fancy amazing and pricey. The JJ machines just play so much differently than everything else. Love the theme but havn't gotten to put a lot of time on one. I get the idea it's pretty darn deep and would take a long time to get through. I'd only consider if they came down in price a bit more, or someone wanted to trade for my AFMr SE down the road (after I've ruled the universe a few times).
6. LOTR. Super deep game and great theming. I've only gotten to play one a few times in the past few years, but remember having a lot of fun on one of these when they came out.
I've been having a lot of fun on my AFM, am looking forward to picking up my ST this week, and have had a lot of fun looking into all these different machines.