Settlers of Catan and Ticket To Ride are both good intros to so-called European style board games, that tend to lack player-elimination and track win progress abstractly in terms Victory Points rather than money or army strength.
Play time of either of the two is 60-90 minutes, Catan seats 4 and TTR seats 5.
Of the two, I prefer TTR, and if you can find it I recommend Ticket To Ride: Europe over the original American one as it has nicer full size cards, adds a nice friendly track-sharing "station" rule that can get you out of a jam, and has a random-chance "tunnel" rule that can add a bit of excitement to your turn if you succeed or fail to dig a tunnel.
I also suggest watching play-throughs or reviews on YouTube. Geek and Sundry has Tabletop playthroughs with Will Wheaton, and Shut Up And Sit Down has reviews done by a British group.
Play time of either of the two is 60-90 minutes, Catan seats 4 and TTR seats 5.
Of the two, I prefer TTR, and if you can find it I recommend Ticket To Ride: Europe over the original American one as it has nicer full size cards, adds a nice friendly track-sharing "station" rule that can get you out of a jam, and has a random-chance "tunnel" rule that can add a bit of excitement to your turn if you succeed or fail to dig a tunnel.
I also suggest watching play-throughs or reviews on YouTube. Geek and Sundry has Tabletop playthroughs with Will Wheaton, and Shut Up And Sit Down has reviews done by a British group.