I would have thrown Journey the Graphics award for the sheer beauty of the thing. Outside of pre-rendered cut scenes I didn't think Halo looked as good as GEARS3. When I was playing co-op with my cousin he keep saying "OMG the graphics are sooooooooo good!" All I could think is that it looked like RAGE without the stylized art direction on the character models. Seems weird gifting it a graphics award.
Diablo 3 is actually a pretty good game now, they've fixed a lot of the problems that plagued the game in the months after launch. Drop rates are good, each class seems to have several viable builds. Monster Power was a cool feature. Blizzard should get credit for actually listening to the complaints of their playerbase and altering the game accordingly in ways that the playerbase actually wanted.
Halo have always been overrated. Boring, non-descript plots, little innovation in the franchise since the original, repetitive campaigns, the banshee gameplay sucks and is tedious and it has too much dialogue that you sometimes miss out on because it takes place in the middle of combat sections and is hard to hear over gunfire. I understand it have high production values etc but if you think it should be one of the top 5 games of the year, then i do not hold your opinion im very high regard.
There is stuff that is far more artistic and inventive and jus plain itneresting out there, e.g. Journey, Mark of the Ninja, Trials Evolutions, Crashmo etc.