We finally got round to playing Pandemic thanks to chomper99 and caffeine_fairy who fed us and showed us how it's done (cheers guys!). Unfortunately we lost but it's a game that has much to recommend it, not least the cooperative aspect.

Afterwards we played St Juan which has the benefit of being much easier than Puerto Rico and cleverly uses cards as buildings, currency and produce. I suspect that going first in the first round might be a big advantage because you can build a better thing than everyone else (if you've drawn it) but it's possible that order is not such a big determinant as in the full game.