If you read the negative reviews on steam, you can often filter these shitty ones out. Also, be suspicious by default of free games. There are some that were made by some game dev just having fun but most want to make money some way or another and f2p monetization is often pretty toxic, like adding a long grind just to sell ways to avoid it or p2w mechanics.

I haven’t felt like I’ve gone wrong by generally just buying the cheapest well-reviewed games on my wishlist, occasionally stretching the budget to grab a mid-priced game I’m interested in and rarely going for a AAA priced game. Means that I get to some great games later (eg, Hollow Knight is one of the more recent ones, highly recommended btw) but it’s been a great way to experience a wide variety of games from today and the last 15 years for not that much money.