I am sorry but the idea of watching someone else play a computer or console game sounds boring. I love to play myself but watching others for too long just is no fun. I could care less if there are better players then myself. There is just no entertainment value in it. I would rather watch paint dry before I would get "into" watching these events.
I would rather play against AI bots then have to deal with (whether real or not) hackers and cheaters in most player populated multiplayer games. There are games that do AI pretty well and there are games that don't. But, when AI is made to mimic other "real" players and does so well it is a major leap in the fun factor of a game. The most recent Call of Duty: Black Ops has some pretty good AI bots in the "Combat Training" mode/version of muliplayer. The bots react very much like players about 90% of the time. They even tend to come back for revenge (or so it seems) if you kill them a various points. Give GOOD AI behavior and I will forego any interaction with real people (other then people I know and trust) in multiplayer situations.
If you don't like DLC, don't use it. If no one uses DLC then the developers will get the idea. Much like the old Beta format video recorders (who remembers those?), if they are not purchased they die. Developers (publishers) think that they are in the drivers seat. No, we the customer are. If we don't buy they don't continue.
3D is a marketing thing and no more. If you look at 3D tech today and compare it to say 40 years ago it has improved but only slightly. It is just another new shiny to try to get you to part with your money.
As a dad, there is only one game on that list that I would want. Of course, I already have a number of them already so that narrows it down a bit. But, the one that I wouldn't mind getting that I don't have is Just Cause 2. I would highly recommend Red Dead Redemption. I would give "buyer be ware" of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 only because it has not been FIXED to work well on either PC or 360....although when it works it does so well. Mass Effect 2, liked the first one better but this one isn't bad.
PC is actually a bit more sharp on textures. Is close to 360 but certainly sharper. Can really tell this if you look at the weapons and the one picture of the telephone pole. PS3 looks a bit out of contrast to me.
I don't see that much of a performance increase to justify moving from Vista 64 to Win 7 at this time. I will wait till I purchasing a new gaming rig in about three years and move to either Win 7 or whatever MS has at that time.
Other then Dx11, I am not overly impressed with what I am seeing with W7. It looks and feels a lot like Vista which for me works just fine. While I like the scalable UAC setting, I still think they are intrusive. Frankly, just fold W7 into a Vista SP2 and the world will be fine.
Gruug's comments