'Bioshock'

Bioshock not only stands out as one of the best games I've played this year, but as an artistic double-whammy. On the purely aesthetic side, Bioshock presents incredibly beautiful art deco architecture and sublimely hideous character design. On the literary side, director Ken Levine presents a clever and insightful interpretation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, asking how the Objectivist writer's novel would have played out if the characters were not nigh-infallible paragons. The game also presents many interesting questions about choice and humanity, though any further details would spoil the plot.

Artistic relevance: Objectivist commentary and interpretation, art deco aesthetics
Related artists: Ayn Rand, Hector Guimard