It's true that there's a huge saturation of alt coins in the market now, which is devaluting a lot of them. It's hard to say which coins will gain in value in the future; sometimes you never know.
what is a alt coin are they like lite coins and such?
Some people consider anything other than BTC an alt coin. Others only consider secondary coins (coins that can't be mined directly) as secondary coins. Another definition is on the Exchange sites. Some classify certain VC as primary market, secondary market, etc. down to "trash" and "scam" coins.