Do acer and asus make good lap tops?

Hey I am looking for a laptop for school but not just for that I want one that can run some games anything in the total war series and the new Witcher 2 game. I was looking around and I saw the new acer 13.3" Timeline Series Notebook and it looks like a great machine for the money. Then some one told me acer's have problems etc. I also saw the Asus N53SV-XR1 15.6" Notebook and that looked like a good buy as well but when I asked my friend who knows quite a bit about computers he said he didn't know much about that particular brand. So if any one could help me that would be great.