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Black Ops is Xbox Live's top game of 2010

Latest Call of Duty title grabs most unique users in first week to claim throne; Halo: Reach takes second spot.

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No Caption Provided Call of Duty: Black Ops has broken sales records and was lauded by reviewers since debuting in November. Now, Microsoft has named it Xbox Live's top title of 2010.

According to data compiled by Xbox Live's director of programming, Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Black Ops beat out the likes of Halo: Reach, Red Dead: Redemption, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 to secure the top spot.

Even the undead are excited.
Even the undead are excited.

Nelson formed the list by compiling each game's number of unique users logged in each game's first seven days. This strays from the lists posted in 2008 and 2009, which displayed a full year's worth of data.

Nelson defended his methodology by saying, "I did the first 7-days since that is a way to normalize the data and give all games a fair chance."

With that caveat aside, the top Xbox Live titles of 2010 are ranked below.

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops
2. Halo: Reach
3. Red Dead Redemption
4. Fable III
5. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
6. Medal of Honor
7. Mass Effect 2
8. FIFA Soccer 11
9. Fallout: New Vegas
10. BioShock 2
11. Madden NFL 11
12. Splinter Cell Conviction
13. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
14. Dead Rising 2
15. Kinect Adventures!
16. NBA 2K11
17. Crackdown 2
18. Aliens vs. Predator
19. Mafia II
20. Army of Two: The 40th Day

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Venom-RIP

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Anyone would buy a game with "call of duty" as its title , I suppose. What garbage.

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River_Horse

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@keech nevertheless MW2 is still the most rewarding game to play. And all games get hacked and such theese days, no game is free from huge bugs that takes a few patches to get rid of! And since most games are made by americans all they can think of is "how do I make the most money out of this game", and not "how do I make the best game with what I got". Got a great idea that would make the game better? Release it as a DLC and dont include it in the original game! pfft My point is; no game is perfect. There will always be that little bit missing. Have to make due with what you got; halo series and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

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thequickshooter

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mafia place 19? nice at least some peple still remmber the best third person shooter in for xbox 360

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hannify

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This is news? This just in. Gamespot stating the obvious.

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metalkid9

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2 most overrated games of the year take the top spot

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skillz4realz

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AVP FTW

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OneEyedMonsta

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Battlefield 3 will rule fall 2011!!! All hail Battlefield 3!!!

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New-Vegas-Fan

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Why did this show up as an update for Fallout: New Vegas

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rigzzsy

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surprised to see brotherhood so far down, one of the best multiplayer games ever i reckon

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bagehi

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They only did 7 days because a lot of people played Black Ops for only a short period of time. Would be interesting to see the average total hours played for each game.

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DrasRexen

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Reach is more satisfying for me.

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Bezee4u

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Really happy to see Reach in second place, while i enjoy Cod, Reach itself just provides this very awesome is more competitive. Enjoyed every game on the list though except BC2(But thats just my opinion so pls no bashing) Kudos Microsoft.

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QuiCkz_Alex

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GREAT COD

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VALikimlav

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Halo all the way! Most competitive multiplayer around. I do love some Black Ops and Bad Company 2, though.

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zzamaro

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M$ should force Activision for online, after all, if what people say about BO being an amazing game, then it should be a paid service. Plus, if people is paying 60 USD/year for LIVE then 10 extra dollars won't affect...no, in fact, it will attract even more people because it'll be a premium service. You get for what you pay for. :)

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Pete5506

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@thenephariouson I'm with you on that

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nemesis4x

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No surprise there, xbox has so little exclusives so obviously people will only play cod or halo.Which is why i sold my xbox. I was too guilty of not buying a ps3 when uncharted 2 came out.

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pl4yer_f0und

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im so tired of black ops and these aim-down-the-sights games, not that there bad, i just want to get back to the more competetive halo

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toritofine

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Well i've played black ops and am aware of it's massively great acceptance. However, i must say i didn't find it as good as bad company 2 or halo reach. Even so, black ops is a fun game that doesn't take itself too seriously. Just giving out an opinion anyway.

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MagicLink95

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Black Ops является настолько удивительным. Особенно Вознесения.

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dragonblader117

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Why is everyone bashing black ops? Because it's popular. My guess is some of you hating on black ops have never even played it. I havent played it and never will so i dont have an opinion on it. Now stop complaing and go play something you actuly like.

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kais112

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actually it's only black ops that shouldn't be there

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kais112

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this is bull

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DANTEMUSTDIE92

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Simply as this... Every game has a difficulty involved... Everyone likes different games... Every guy who talks about a game being bad...it's an idiot... Shup Up and go play the game you like!!

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keech

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@River_Horse You must really like playing broken, unbalanced, and unsupported MP games then. Out of the last 4 CoD games, the MP in MW2 is easily the worst. Far too many exploits and a total lack of balance that either took way too long to patch or never got fixed at all.

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Flint247

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[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

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River_Horse

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Oh and Modern Warfare 2 is still the best FPS out there for the Xbox 360.

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River_Horse

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Really? how can such a bad FPS game (multiplayer) claim first place? I bet its the name that sells. if the name was like armed soldiers it wouldnt sell at all because its really bad

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kickblocker

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army of two is on that list and alan wake isnt?

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Pokemon18986

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Im glad to see Reach multiplayer coming in at least second, cause its amazing, Dunno why Conviction is beating Brotherhood, i love Conviction, but really?

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strawberry9

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The Call of duty series has sucked since the first modern warfare... BF BC2 was the best shooter of 2010 hands down.

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Black_Hand_313

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I had low expectations for Black Ops, but I'm glad I gave it a chance because it's a really good game. Definitely the best Call of Duty since Modern Warfare imo. Treyarch is a decent company that listens to its fans and actually tries to make a good game, they shouldn't be hated because they're owned by greedy Activision and bashed by IW fanboys who miss noobtubing, nuke boosting and using OMA in Modern Warfare 2. I'm not saying it's the best game in 2010. Mass Effect 2 is my new favorite game of all time, Halo Reach was awesome, and AC: Brotherhood should be higher on the list. If you didn't like Black Ops, I respect that, but it's far from the broken glitchfest some of you guys are making it out to be. Don't bash it for being more popular than your favorites.

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chopit

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Garbage rankings. First 7 days of activity? I bet 1/4 of those that played in the first 7 days didn't continue to log on after 7 days. Black Ops (BO) stunk and only sold well due to how good Modern Warfare was and that BO was supposed to be better. Halo Reach wins for me...hands down. Black ops shouldn't even be in the top 5. Maybe make your poll consist of the percentage of players who logged into the multiplayer more than once or twice and didn't stop playing the game after 7 days? Maybe based on a percentage of people who bought the game and continued to play multiplayer for a set period of time. Either way would produce drastically different ranks! These rankings are sales only...crappy job gamestop. You might as well have posted ranking based on sales of games that have a multiplayer mode. Boo....

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xgraderx

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All good games there but BFBC2 was my #1 in 2010 and 11,so far unless BF 3 is released.My first BF game and the best MP I've ever played.The game is a spectacle online.More people should give it a try.

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LycanBane

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Call of Duty so easy a caveman could play it. Aim assists and small maps is why this game sells so well.

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FullMonty1394

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@xFL4WL3SSx woo! high five for gears 3! screw CoD, gears is gonna blow it outta the water! also, there is a slight problem with your prediction... it should be #1 Dead Space 2 #2 Gears 3 #10 Modern Warfare 3

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LycanBane

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[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

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bandtnt

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Black Ops A Top BROKEN game of 2010

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xFL4WL3SSx

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Just wait till Gears 3 comes out, and I bet you guys will see it at the #1 spot and MW3 at #2, I'm one of the people that will play Gears 3 instead of COD this holiday!!!! anyone???!?!!!?

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Madgnad

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The reason alot of people dislike the game isn't just because it's a rehash of previous Call of Duty's, but because of how buggy it is. I bought the PC version and to this day it is still unplayable. I have a great gaming rig and the game runs poorly on it. Some people will say, "well all games have their bugs, like Fallout New Vegas". Funny thing about Fallout New Vegas is they fixed most of their bugs in a fairly short time. The Devs at Treyarch still have not addressed the performance problems with its PC community. They've already came out with DLC, and they still haven't fixed our games? From what I've heard the PS3 version also has it's bugs but I can't speak from experience since I didn't buy that version.

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thenephariouson

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i still play R6:Vegas 1 & 2 : )) Cant beat a good old 'Attack & Defend' in Calypso Casino : )

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Shawcross

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Awesome list. Black Ops is the best shooter to come out yet on a console.

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FullMonty1394

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this game gets so much more than what it deserves. you know what series really deserves this much attention? Dead Space. Freaking excellent game compared to these constantly re-hashed Call of Duty pieces of crap.

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NeonNinja

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Wait, these guys formed the list based on unique users in one week? That means this list is based purely on hype and nothing more. Even I played Black Ops during its first week, but I haven't returned to it in months. Y'know, because it isn't as good as everyone says it is. I would have been far more interested to see this as an unbiased list where the data from the entire year was taken because then we would be able to see just how many users chose to stay with Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, etc or switch to the newer versions. As it is, this is genuinely useless.

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Albenuova

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@sleepnsurf I also have both the Ps3 and 360 and i hate to break it to you...as far as quality of the connection goes they are pretty much the same. I actually recent canceled my 360 live because ive notice that both consoles have the similar connection issues. As a side note just because you have to pay for online does really mean its better. I think people are convince that it does. Thumbs down for me cause its on the cod xbox page.

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Whirlbat

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14 of my 16 new updates were to inform me of this. Thank you, GameSpot.

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wetcardboard

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Well it isn't MY top game of 2010

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FonikhSoupia

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Interesting List. I don't find the methodology used to collect the data very accurate though, especially with all the hype that some games had, were bought, and never played again after a couple of days... The whole year should have been used IMO

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Darth_Nater307

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To quote Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife, "Not interested."

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NColdhardt

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Mutliplayer games sell the best nowadays. Ten bucks says 10% of players who bought BO never touched the campaign... I know I didn't.

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