I just moved my PVR [1] machine to a new case. I would put it in my "server room" - home office - but there isn't enough room in there. So, it sits in the living room where most of my AV distribution stuff is anyway.
It was in an inexpensive case that worked alright, but looked kind of ugly (I don't care that much), had a pretty loud fan, and not enough room inside - difficult to put in 2 hard drives and a CD/DVD drive, but large enough for full height cards.
I just swapped the case for an
Antec NSK2400. For more pictures, see Newegg:
NSK2400 at www.newegg.com. It's a simple steel case with a plastic front, although it doesn't look particularly "plasticky." The only two openings in the front are for 5.25" drives, so if you want a display or anything else, it will either be in one of those or you'd need to cut a hole in the plastic.
The interior layout is divided into different sections - power supply/5.25 bay, hard drives, and motherboard. There are 2 120mm fans on the side and the power supply fan. With the fans on low speed, it's very quiet. My CPU fan makes more noise than the case fans. It only works with microATX motherboards, but can handle full-height cards.
The only problem with it is that it is big. It's 17.5 inches wide - and you need more room for the vans/vents on the sides. 17.5 inches is too wide (by about 0.5") to fit in a normal rack-mount shelf. A normal component will be 17" or less in width. It's also almost 17" deep - and the feet are close to the front and back.
I have a 3.5 foot (or so) high rack in the living room so the case sits comfortably on top of the rack rather than on a shelf. I'd like it to be on a shelf, but it won't work without some shelf customization - a project for a later date, maybe.
It uses blue LEDs for power (around the switch) and hard drive use, but they are not nearly as intrusive as most blue LEDs. I was going to replace them with green, but I don't think I'll bother.
I was also planning to paint the silver front panel black, but the silver doesn't look that bad so I might keep it that way. The "Antec" label on the front is unobtrusive, so I don't mind having that there.
[1] All it does is record tv programs (SageTV) so I don't want to call it an HTPC. I don't even use it to play back the recorded programs.