It might be worth seriously considering a console.
I spent quite a few years casually PC gaming, in the end I got sick of tweaking settings to get games running optimally. Sometimes I spent so much time tweaking a few fps here and there, that by the time I actually got around to playing it, I had lost interest (Oblivion for example).
The beauty of consoles is that there is none of this – just stick the disk in and play, a very polished experience. I can’t say I miss having a mouse and keyboard either.
I bought an xbox for about the same price as a quality graphics card and I don’t regret it one bit. In 15+ years of gaming some of the most fun, memorable experiences have been in the last year playing with buddies, either split-screen or online (Gears of War, RE5, Left 4 Dead). To me, that says a lot about the quality of it.
Just a thought….