What kinds of games do you play? Usually the recommended route for gaming in Linux is to run your games under Wine, but in my current setup I just have Windows 7 on dual boot with Arch Linux (which is where I'm currently typing this) like you to avoid the hassle.

I have been hopping from distro to distro for about a year now and in my experience the distro you pick doesn't really matter that much if you aren't the type of guy who likes to tinker with stuff under the hood. But if you are, then I would recommend Arch Linux. Besides all the bells and whistles (or rather the lack thereof -- I am extremely bloat-allergic and so I have been known to do a complete reinstall of Windows every 6 months), it puts complete responsibility on you as a user to know what you're doing. Because of that, if you screw up then you know that it's all your fault.

Do you know how to use a terminal? One of the best things I ever did for myself was to sit down and attempt to crack open that esoteric bugabeast. If you don't, here's a nice tutorial. Once you go full Linux, that little black box blinking at you is going to be your best friend. If anything you should at least learn how to use it so that you'll have an idea of what to do when you accidentally bork your system. Also it's a good way to immerse yourself in the Unix Way so there's that.