A few months back Microsoft started giving away free games to Xbox Live Gold members, presumably to compete with Sony's wonderful PlayStation Plus service. Microsoft's offerings thus far have been pretty weak (mostly older games that many Xbox owners already had), but next month's games show a little improvement. According to Xbox news site Xbox Wire next month's Games with Gold will be Sleeping Dogs (Jan. 1-15) and Laura Croft and the Guardian of Light (Jan. 16-31).
These are both fantastic games, but I'm pretty sure these have both been offered as PlayStation Plus rewards in the past, so Microsoft still needs to step it up a little bit more if they want to best Sony, especially since January's PS+ rewards include Bioshock Infinite and DmC.
Source: news.xbox.com
