I could have sworn I read someone talking about this game before on here, but a search shows the only reference is to a sale in the Omnibus thread, so...
FTL is an indie game released last year after a successful kickstarter campaign. The two guys who created the game hoped to raise $10,000, and ended up with over $200,000; plenty to start their own company and work on new games after the success of FTL. The game is available on Steam for $10.
FTL is a roguelike, top-down, sci-fi game. The concept and graphics are simple: you are piloting a ship through 8 sectors, trying to bring key intelligence about a rebel assault back to the Federation you're a part of. Each sector is made up of perhaps 20 locations you can visit, and each location can have different events that occur there. Being a roguelike game, the sectors and encounters are randomized in each game, and death is permanent (if you lose, you must restart on a new ship with a new crew). You start out with the basic, jack-of-all-trades human-operated ship, but can unlock different human ships, different model types, and different races' ships by completing quests or getting achievements across your games. Some achievements are simple (such as "Reach sector 5" or "Beat the game on Easy"), while others are very much based on luck (one of the rock cruiser's achievements requires not only planning, but a lot of luck to get the series of events needed, to the point where some players complain that they've yet to receive the achievement even after dozens of games).
The game is pretty balanced, in that each ship is neither over or under powered, but specialized. For example, the stealth cruiser starts out with cloaking systems, but no shields; that means you might be able to avoid some hits, but when they get through, it hurts! Or you have the Mantis cruisers, which specialize in boarding; you start with weak ship weapons, but a teleporter allows your Mantis crew to board the enemy ships and tear them apart from within. Or a slug cruiser, which lets you use a special anti-bio beam to target the enemy crew remotely. I believe there are some 18 or so different ships.
While the game might be balanced, the randomness of the encounters can be cringe-worthy. If you get a series of unlucky encounters, even the best strategy could fail. On the other hand, even with great luck you'll lose without a strategy. Some ships are very dependent on luck, especially at the beginning of the game, where a lack of scrap (the currency) or upgrades could spell death within the first sector or two. Even if you have scrap, you might not find a store; even if you find a store, it might not sell what you need.
I've played 5 playthroughs so far, and finally won for the first time on the last one. A "fast" game would likely be an hour or so; I think my longest was 2 and a half hours (with about 30 minutes of that being "skill farming;" your crew members can train skills like piloting or weapons systems to give boosts to your ship). The game culminates in a three-part boss fight; and again, RNG can kill you if you show up without several different weapons/systems. In one of my (failed) games, I got to the end boss without a drone system and without missiles. I couldn't do enough damage to hurt the boss ship through its shields, and I didn't have enough ways to mitigate incoming damage... despite being a "lucky" run up to the end, the end itself stopped me cold.
That said, the game is a LOT of fun. When you have a good strategy come together, it's fun to run circles around the AI. If you've got $10 to spare, it's not a bad game to play.