Temporal logic comes in two varieties: linear-time temporal logic assumes implicit universal quantification over all paths that are generated by system moves; branching-time temporal logic allows explicit existential and universal quantification over all paths. We introduce a third, more general variety of temporal logic: alternating-time temporal logic offers selective quantification over those paths that are possible outcomes of games, such as the game in which the system and the environment alternate moves. While linear-time and branching-time logics are natural specification languages for closed systems, alternative-time logics are natural specification languages for open systems. For example, by preceding the temporal operator "eventually" with a selective path quantifier, we can specify that in the game between the system and the environment, the system has a strategy to reach a certain state. Also, the problems of receptiveness, realizability, and controllability can be formulated as model-checking problems for alternating-time formulas. Depending on whether we admit arbitrary nesting of selective path quantifiers and temporal operators, we obtain the two alternating-time temporal logics ATL and ATL*. We interpret the formulas of ATL and ATL* over alternating transition systems. While in ordinary transitory systems, each transition corresponds to a possible step of the system, in alternating transition systems, each transition corresponds to a possible move in the game between the system and the environment. Fair alternating transition systems can capture both synchronous and asynchronous compositions f open systems. For synchronous systems, the expressive power of ATL beyond CTL comes at no cost: the model-checking complexity of synchronous ATL is linear in the size of the system and the length of the formula. The symbolic model-checking algorithm for CTL extends with few modifications to synchronous ATL, and with some work, also to asynchronous to ATL, whose model-checking complexity is quadratic. This makes ATL an obvious candidate for the automatic verification of open systems. In the case of ATL*, the model-checking problem is closely related to the synthesis problem for linear-time formulas, and requires doubly exponential time for both synchronous and asynchronous systems.