(I have an older Wacom Bamboo without the multi-touch feature, and wore out one of the stylus nibs playing through Torchlight.)

(Holy triple-post, Batman! The server went down for a bit and I made the n00b mistake of mashing "add reply" a bunch of times. )

I'll second the recommendation for the Wacom Bamboo. It's inexpensive for what you get, and it has a slight texture to it like paper so it's easy to draw on.

I have the Bamboo Fun. It was the same price as a low end, small, Intuos. But I chose it because it has a larger surface, and the wide shape perfectly maps out to my 16x10 screen. The tablet texture is good (not perfectly smooth) and the pen feels good.

It also comes with Photoshop Elements, much better than GIMP, and Corel Painter Essentials. Which are about 99$ standalone here.

http://www.wacom.com.../bamboo_fun.php

@kdmiller, I disable my touch input, and I only use the tablet while in Photoshop.