I've been a big fan of the GOTY and so far have been very happy with the majority leader the last 3 years.  If you don't remember who won the last few years I'll tell you.

In 2006- the majority leader was Gears of War which was by far the most innovative and interesting new 3rd-person shooter.  It had an incredible story mode as well as decent online play (horde mode in 2008 was a huge step up).  Beyond that the Game was using the awesome Unreal engine and the steller cinematics had you tearing up as nothing like it had every been seen before.  Most sites and magazines all agreed that Gears of War was by far the overall GOTY leader.  It was also followed up by huge press on a possible movie which seems to be in theaters this upcoming year for the first time (hopefully they won't screw it up).

In 2007-the majority leader was a little bit split when it came to overall votes, but the majority leader was Super Mario Galaxy.  We know that it's Mario and having such an icon will make the game sell, since he's the first major character all gamers come to grow and love.  But honestly the game of Mario Galaxy is a whole new game.  It's basically a gravity defying game with unpredictable tracks and levels that seem to immerse you with incredible challenges and interesting boss fights.  The game is good and adding Mario to it just seals it with excellence.

In 2008-this was a very different year of gaming.  It seemed that there were a lot of very hot titles this year and it took sites a lot of investigating to really find out what was the best.  With games like Grand theft auto 4 and the latest installment of Metal Gear Solid, sites had a lot to deal with.  This was the first real time the PS3 really showed off its graphics excellence after being continually swatted by the Wii.  The overall leader was Fallout 3.  Why was Fallout 3 so much better than Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto?  It's not that it was better game, it was the most innovative.  It also was released on Xbox, PS3 and the PC.  It gave every gamer the option of getting it.  Bethesda also bought a franchise that was held dear to followers of the franchise.  They did an excellent job continuing this franchise without destroying the awesomeness of the previous titles.  The rpg elements were nicely mixed with the option of playing the game like Halo or freezing the frame and slowly taking down your enemy like a Bioware game.  

I do want to point out that if Starcraft 2 came out this year it would win by default because it's Starcraft

That leaves us with this years GOTY.  There's a reason why I talked about these three titles as they all have very distinct reasons as to why they are excellent.  Keep in mind a sequel should never get a GOTY overall winner because that just says that a great title in 2004 with jacked up graphics is the most innovative thing we have today.  That's a contradiction.  Otherwise Gears of War 2 would have won last year over Fallout 3, but we'd already seen that in 2006.  That means Left 4 Dead 2 and Call of Duty 6 should not win GOTY, but it's nice to give them a respectable nomination.  Modern Warfare 2 was an excellent game and has a very good story (despite that one russian civilian killing mission that doesn't make sense).  

Sometimes a sequel can get a GOTY win if it's gone through a number of changes: engine, gameplay, and adds innovative features.  

With all that said that really just leaves us with Uncharted 2.  Have you played Uncharted 2?  It's got some great PS3 graphics power pumped to the ultimate degree (still Modern Warfare looks better).  The only thing innovative about it is it rips off Gears of War combat, so we have the 3rd-person technique, mixed with concepts from Tomb Raider.  You have to solve a puzzle all of a sudden to unlock the passage into the next area.  This was probably the worst part about the game and it's surprizingly overlooked by reviewers.  They only slightly bring it up, but these parts really add frustration and pain to the experience of the game.  The controls are clunky and it feels like Sony paid all websites to make this off balanced part seem like not such a big deal.  If you are a Prince of Persia, God of War type gamer, this part wouldn't seem too uncomfortable.  

That leaves us with the only game worthy of being GOTY this year.  The game is hands down Borderlands.  As much as this game might have faded since its release it's the game we all spent the most time with.  The game was still pretty large and has too much potential to grow stronger with more DLC.  It's the Fallout of 2009.  It is the only game this year that combines the best of games and really works in combination.  Despite what I'm surprizingly seeing with the media, it has sold more combine sales than Uncharted 2.  It's that Christmas game parents should buy for their kids since they'll really enjoy it over clunky Uncharted 2 and rehashed Modern Warfare 2(even though it's great, but you have to admit we've seen it over and over).  Even though currently I'm sitting on Modern Warfare, I have to admit the innovation of Borderlands surpasses all titles this year.  

Hopefully sites will really look into games and have a pretty solid explanation on the overall leader of 2009.  We know that Gamespot will pick Uncharted 2 because Gamespot is told what to think.  The VGA awards picked Grand Theft Auto 4 over Fallout 3, which was again a quick pick with no investigation, so they will probably pick Modern Warfare 2.