Note: I'm going to pretty much disregard your guidelines for recommendations and just tell a story about most/all the american comics I've read.
I've always disliked the idea of superhero comics for the most part (though I liked the cartoons and all), and for most of my life I've totally ignored american comics in general (and most japanese ones). Over the past few years though I've tried to ignore my sentiment towards the retarded nomoment type of people and give american comics a real shot.
Starting from a few years ago:
Ultimates: I really dug the art, didn't really care for the pop culture references (hulk smash freddy prinze junior etc.), but liked it overall.
Ultimate Spider-man: Shit. I mean, dumb whiny kid whines constantly is basically how it went. Readers outside of emo 12 year olds need not apply.
DKR: Excellent, but we all know that.
Deadpool (a few issues): loved it, wanted to read more, couldn't get my hands on any more at the time.
Age of Apocalypse (didn't know the reading order, didn't have access to the complete thing): buhhhhh what the hell is going on.
After that I pretty much stopped for a year or two, with the exception of Watchmen which I read a few months back (excellent of course). In the last week though my interest has been sparked again and I've been reading a bunch of marvel stuff:
Cable & Deadpool: single-handedly got me into american comics seriously. I thought Deadpool was damn cool a few years back when I was able to read some issues from the solo Deadpool series, and it comes together all over again here. It may not be high brow literature but it's highly entertaining (especially in how the two main characters play off each other), with straightforward but well-crafted art (disregard the liefeld covers) and a story that knows where it's going. Liked it so much that I actually subscribed to it (also because it's kind of in dangerous sales territory and I don't want it to be cancelled).
Wolverine V3 (Specifically the Enemy of the State / Agent of SHIELD 12-issue arc): lovely art, very well realized story arc told by mark millar. Wolverine may be supremely overexposed but that didn't matter here. Very impressed.
Astonishing X-men: joss whedon thinger focusing on kitty pryde returning to the x-men and uhh well mostly random crap used as an excuse to further character development. The story itself doesn't feel like anything special, but the character interactions are very strong (being whedon and all), and the art is interesting.
Deadpool: started from the beginning. It's kinda slow and pedestrian starting out, but really comes into its own eventually when the whole mithras story arc kicks into gear. Deadpool, heavily disfigured mercenary guy, goes on an introspective journey (heh) to figure out whether he wants to stay a villain/gun for hire or become a hero, every step influenced by outside parties and his own zany dimentia. Lots of other fun stuff too. When it's on, it's really on, and I'm not even up to the lauded Simone run at the end. Very tongue-in-cheek.
Age of Apocalypse: Okay, attempt #2 at this. This time I'm not just randomly reading associated issues, but even so it's not entirely holding my interest. I dunno, art from this period mostly sucks and it doesn't even feel like it has much depth by comic book standards. Only about halfway through though. *shrug*
That's it for now. Here's a few pics for the above.
Cable & Deadpool:
Deadpool:
Wolverine (Enemy of the State / Agent of SHIELD):
Astonishing X-Men:
