I first started playing Dominion in December 2010. I had read a lot of great reviews about it, but particularly I was looking for a good two-person game for my wife and I. There seemed to be great consensus on Dominion being excellent for 2 players. Still I wasn't sure about a "board game" that was just cards. "Where's the board?" I soon found out that it was definitely not necessary.
Since Prosperity had just been released shortly before my purchase, I had a few expansions to choose from. Ultimately, I chose base Dominion and Prosperity as my first purchases. I believe it was the addition of Colonies and Platinums along with victory tokens that made me go with Prosperity, rather than Intrigue or Seaside. To this day, there are many cards in Prosperity that I enjoy seeing in the game. The attacks in Prosperity also didn't seem as "mean" as some in Intrigue and Seaside.
Ironically, the day I received the games, some friends from out of state stopped in for a visit. So I had this new game I was dying to play, but it was designed for 4 people and we had 6. I knew Intrigue added cards and rules for 6, so I looked them up. Our first game was 5 people. (My wife sat out to do some other things.) We played with just the treasures from the base set and used some blanks for the extra Provinces and Estates. We played the recommended first game. It was a big hit. We played several games over the next couple of days. Though at first we were confused by it, it did not take us too long to understand the benefits of Chapel. My wife particularly loved it. It is probably still her favorite card to this day.
After our friends left, we tried it with just the two of us, and it was even better. Shortly thereafter I purchased Intrigue, soon followed by Seaside. It did not take me long to start sleeving my investment. A great side benefit is that you can slide something different into the sleeve to test new cards or create ones that you don't have at the time. I have purchased all of the expansions and promos except for Alchemy. I had absolutely no interest in Possession and wasn't so sure about some of the others in the expansion. After I bought the basis treasures set, I now had Potions. So I used my extra old sleeved treasures to make the cards I wanted to try from Alchemy, tho it has eventually grown to include all of them but Possession.
My wife loves to play board games with me, but no other game comes close to Dominion as to how often she wants to play it. We both love the variety the game has and how each kingdom has its unique aspects that direct the flow of the game. We play at least weekly, and usually more than once per week. I have tried to introduce other games into our routine. We enjoy most of them, but we always come back to Dominion because it is our favorite.