THE GAME

Spiel... so lange du kannst!
You can be forgiven for dismissing THE GAME as theme-less little filler. Despite the ominous art depicting a skull on the box and the back of every card, it is literally just 98 cards numbered from 2 to 99 that you will take turns playing onto 4 card piles, two piles ascending from 1 and two piles descending from one hundred. 
But you need to know that it's more than a game, THE GAME is a compact which 1-5 players enter into, that they will play THE GAME start to finish and that when THE GAME ends when a player cannot legally play a card, however many cards remain unplayed are people somewhere out in the world who will drop dead. 
You're playing to save those people, but it was your decision to play that put their lives in the balance in the first place.

I love explaining that backstory to new players after I've already dealt out the cards. Obviously I don't believe in it - that would make me a monster since I've played it so many times and introduced many new players to THE GAME. Since I first purchased my copy, it's become my #1 filler game for those moments when we're sitting there waiting for another player to start a bigger game, or at the end of the night after a bigger game is done and people still want to play but don't have time to begin another longer game. THE GAME is a game that perfectly fills its niche.

A simple explanation doesn't do the gameplay justice. It features the same artificial constraints on player communication as Hanabi, a game I played first but enjoy much, much less.
You can't tell the other players in this coop game what you have, but you can make implications & cajole them - desperate pleas to not play on a certain pile of cards are very common. But you might have to play there anyway. Each player has their own hand of misery to deal with, and the optimal play for you is definitely going to be a sub-optimal outcome for one or more players, and thus the group as a whole. It's a game about mitigation.
I promise that is more fun than it sounds.

The rules of play, restrictions on communication, and a pile of cards that must be played that dwindles as your options to play them are slowly restricted by the players' previous actions - all this combines to give the whole experience a marvelously strained and almost subterranean feel.

To my way of thinking that many games are two games happening at the same time, the one one the table and the one above it between players, THE GAME is mostly on the table in front of you. But the audible groans, dropped jaws, accusatory stares... these are all excellent lubrication to an otherwise dry game.

THE GAME is a game of delightfully bitter recriminations.

QUICK HITS:
Theme: Vaguely threatening
Gameplay: Card playing, number counting - way more fun than that sounds.
Components: Solid quality cards
Replayability: Players looking for a quick challenge will play often as a filler. 
Rulebook: Basically a piece of paper that explains the very simple rules good enough.

Link to THE GAME on BGG.com