Alienware is a piece of junk now adays, when they were their own PC company, they were still expensive, but you got a quality product, now Dell owns them, their poor customer support and poor build quality and care is what we know as alienware. If you want a PC for 3000 dollars, go get a voodoo, HP owns them, and HP is known for their quality.
Though a 3000 dollar PC is crazy, I would look for something in the 400-700 dollar range for internet use, burning dvd's, and playing some games. They wont run games at full graphics if the game is brand new, but they will probably run with lower graphics. Anything else such as surfing the net, and running programs, a cheap PC can handle easily.