Yesterday, Valve rolled out a new update to Steam's user interface that tries to give users better recommendations for games they would like.
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Called the Steam Discovery Update, the new UI features a redesigned home page for the Steam Store. The updated recommendation system suggests games to users based on what they recently bought and what games they've recently been playing. The recommendations can also be customized, so you can tell Valve you'd rather see early access games or DLC for games you've already bought.
The update also encourages users to find new, smaller games with the Steam Discovery Queue. The Discovery Queue feeds you a selection of about a dozen new games that you probably haven't heard of but might enjoy based on your existing game activity. Quickly scanning your queue is easy. When a game comes up on your screen, you can easily add it to your wishlist, follow it for update news, tell Valve you aren't interested in this kind of game or just move on to the next suggestion without taking any action.
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The Discovery Queue lets you see at a glance how Steam reviews tend to see the game, which is very helpful for the newer games that you might not have heard of before. The queue is pretty good at recommending games that came out within the last few months, sometimes even within the last few weeks, though I did receive the occasional game that had been out for a year or more.
The new front page of the Steam Store has the same new releases area as well as an area highlighting games that recently got updated. The search function got an overhaul as well, as users can now search games by title, tags and genres.
The update also added a new Steam Curators program, where a user can recommend games he likes while other Steam users can subscribe to their recommendations. It's helpful if you want to have an easy way to get Steam recommendations from your favorite YouTuber or website.
The new update is live now, so if you're on Steam, take a minute or so to test drive it a bit. You may end up stumbling across the next big thing without even realizing it.