Steam does demo fests with tons of new games to try completely free, that’s my goto when I want to try something new, true that not all games offer a demo but that’s devs loss imo, if they believe in their games they shouldn’t be afraid of releasing a demo.

I too usually wait for discounts (got Mass Effect legendary edition at 10$ xD), especially on GOG, only exception are games like BG3 or Expedition 33, for those I’m happy to pay full price the moment they release.