I've been playing more games than I've had time to write about, apparently.
Lots of worker placements. :| My Spanish friend is drawn to Euros like moths to flame.
Yedo - Very similar to
Lords of Waterdeep. A key difference lies in the auction for the main actions. The action phase lets you do the same things with less efficacy. Quinns hates this game but it seems all right so far. Maybe the stench of stale design will rise in later plays.
Alien Frontiers - This one is slow to start but really picks up once you know what you're doing. Like Quantum, you're using dice as playing pieces; unlike Quantum, this is...not Quantum. You roll dice and decide what you can do with the numbers, given certain areas can only accept certain values.
Descent 2nd Edition - I've done a couple day-long sessions. MUCH more streamlined than 1st edition, and that's a good thing. The smaller map pieces are less likely to eat your table and the focused objectives are less likely to eat your time. But both will be destroyed anyway should you choose to keep playing and buy more expansions. It's a great reason to end up in a regular gaming group: if someone else has the game, you don't have to buy it.
Archipelago - I bought this based on SU&SD's enthusiastic review and it does not disappoint. Think Catan if it had a long honeymoon with Civ 5: you get to explore new territory, set up nifty little towns, place your workers here and there. Even with my tortured rules explanation, my first session was very fun. The best part is how it comprises many aspects other games cover and fits them together in this thematic smorgasbord of opportunity. Even better, actually, is the loose structure that allows everyone to wheel and deal. And then there's the angry native population that everyone has to work together to quell, but then everyone's competing with each other, and the art design is well integrated, and the meeples, and how the economy is in crisis every round, and the single-player expansion so I can sit there by myself and--too much?
Shipyard - This would be a mundane worker placement were it not for its crazy obsession with rondel movement. It manages to solve a problem often seen in this type of game where there are so many options you end up losing your head. By mapping everything out with rondel movement, it's somehow more intuitive. And you get to build big ol' ships for points. Fun.