Without thinking too hard, the favorite characters I can think of:
GTA IV has got lots of entertaining characters, especially Roman, Little Jacob and Brucie! Those dudes were hilarious! Of course, the stupid rapper, the various mobsters and bad guys, the irish family and just random freaks you'd find were also quite funny. GTA's characters are awesome because they are all freaks, psychos or are just a bit weird and have, you know, character.
GTA:SA also had good characters like The Truth, Tenpenny, Ryder, Toreno.
Saint's Row 2'S characters were not as good as GTA's, but a few were OK like Mr. Sunshine and The General (despite being obvious stereotypes) were very entertaining.
Half-life 2's characters were quite good. They were very well done and didn't grate like many characters do, but I found them to be a bit mundane; archetypes that everyone's seen a hundred times before. They were not very unusual. Dog was quite decent too.
I think Left 4 Dead's characters were very good. They say some very funny things at times and their commentary doesn't seem to grate horribly like most games would have had.
Some characters were OK in The Witcher, and the overall level of the characters is mostly well above average. Just about everyone in that is a sleaze bag or weirdo rather than a generi-voiced talking post that hands out quests.
Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Joker! I definitely enjoyed his lines and the stuff the thugs said was also quite fun. Hearing the Joker taunting his thugs over the PA system was great fun.
The characters in Gears of War (only played the first one) were rubbish. My favorite was the hillbilly that operates some lights in one section and utters the best line in the game.
Fallout 3 had a few good characters and even a few scumbags and greys.
UT99's characters were more interesting than the later UTs even though you could only find out about them in the short bios during the campaign. The characters in UT2k3 and onwards were pathetic.
If "Serve Player and stand here" characters are ruled out I don't have to mention the boring non-characters in most RPGs. Diablo 2, however, did have a few good characters.
Unfortunately, it's not so easy to remember bad characters because the biggest trait of bad characters is that they're unmemorable.
Most of the time, the voices and other supporting content only serve to define just how empty and boring the characters are. If left to the players' imaginations, the mystery would be better and we'd fill in the blanks with much more interesting stuff than the stupid, generic or out of place stuff they usually use to describe characters.
I find it especially awful when your own character says something that is so far removed from what you are thinking and what you would say. Gordon Freeman is totally awesome because everyone has their own ideas of who the character is and if Valve ever tried to fill in the blanks and give him a voice, it would be very disappointing.
Overall, I think GTA's characters are the most entertaining. Even the pedestrians are much more entertaining than the characters in many games.
Another thing I'd like to mention is that a quality portrayal of a character and their life and all the things they do, all their little thoughts and all their hopes and dreams doesn't necessarily make a good character. A quality portrayal of a boring, mundane character doesn't make them any better.
I want characters that do interesting things, say strange things, that have bizarre habits, make mistakes, exhibit fear, superstition, stupidity and have failings and negative traits. I want characters with character!
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Jessica Cannon (SiN Episodes).