Most years I don't come across a 10, but this year I was lucky to find not one but two. Neither came out this year, though, but they're new to me.
First game is Kenshi. Kenshi is kind of an open world sandbox RPG/RTS/Survival game. It takes place in a post-post-apocalyptic world and you can pick from a number of starting conditions like "alone in the desert with no legs" or "two characters fleeing from cannibals". You can recruit up to 30 characters into your party and train them in different skills like Labor (for mining or farming), or Katanas, or Robotics, or whatever. You can do whatever you want--there's no win condition or objective, so you can play it as a lone wandering swordsman that focuses on bounties or you can build up entire settlement and wage war on other factions. Anybody who loves games like Mount & Blade, Sid Meier's Pirates, or RimWorld, etc, etc will love this game too.
The second is Outer Wilds. This caught my eye when I was searching Steam for Outer Worlds and boy is it way better than I ever expected from a random gem. This is a space exploration adventure game where the only objective you're ever explicitly given is "go get the launch codes for your spaceship", and after that you're just on your exploring the solar system. You'll discover clues and ruins about the extinction of an ancient civilization and uncover the mystery of why you're "Groundhog Daying" every time you die. I am not smart, but I am thorough and this game took me 20 hours to solve a game that you can beat in 10 minutes once you know what to do. I refuse to spoil anything else because this is a game best experienced with a blind playthrough. You'll play it once and never come back, but you'll remember the experience forever because it's that good. I recommend this game to EVERYBODY.
