Been playing Dominion mostly lately (obviously). I also dabbled in some other board games too, I played Ticket to Ride a few times - it's quite easy to teach, yet it makes a fun competitive game. I also got the PC version off the Steam summer sale earlier for no reason. I'd say Ticket to Ride would be a very close competition to Dominion - easy to learn, hard to master, great fun.
I played Pandemic as well (for like half a dozen times) and it seemed like I'm the only one who was really interested in playing it (it was mostly played before I got to Dominion). As someone said above, for these co-op games it's very easy to have a dominant person take over the game and tell others to do blablabla, possibly ruining the experience. Pandemic also has the expansion (I forgot the name) that's pretty much a must-get if you want more roles to play with (I think it supports more people? I forgot) along with some alternate game modes.
I haven't played it with anyone yet, but I have a copy of Flash Point: Fire Rescue sitting along with my other games. I did a test run myself (since in my group I'm the guy explaining everything) and as a co-op game, I think it is as good as Pandemic, but the gameplay may be a little more complex with the fire spreading and wall destroying in comparison to Pandemic.
Power Grid is great but it also requires some calculations. It's not easy to get your head around the game initially (since the game runs in 3 phases instead of just one), but once you got the idea (that it's not just buying resources for yourself and make money off it), it's great. It works with pretty much as many players as it can allow. I wish I could play more.
I actually got around to play a more obscure game called
Vinhos where you run a vineyard in Portugal and make wines. The board looks crazy, but it's actually not that intimidating, it just needs to be explained. I played this once with my friends and they think it's fun (even though we got like 2-3 minor things wrong). It's also a strategy game that requires some pre-planning. It's good, but getting non-board gamers to play after seeing the board is part of the challenge (or an initiation).
Me and my friends got to try 7 Wonders and it didn't click. They were like "Oh, you just pass cards around?" "Wait, what does this do again?" and lost interest in it quickly (the game was actually abandoned). Different strokes for different folks I suppose. They were much more receptive to Dominion, where they get more satisfaction immediately ("oooo I can use money to get more money!").
