Just wrapped up the campaign. The first act was kinda meh, but the last two were boatloads of awesome. I'm really excited to crank up the difficulty on this one.

Another tip is to take the Deathstreak perk that allows you to steal your murderer's class. This will give you perks and weapons that you don't have access to yet, and give you a look at the load-outs other players are using.

You know, I need to re-equip the rocket launcher now that I have stopping power pro (adds power against vehicles) and see how well that works. I stopped using it as you only get 1 shot and it was never enough to bring down a harrier/copter by itself.

Once you get the upgraded launcher, I equipped that. It is lock-on ONLY and ONLY works against vehicles, but it has two rockets. One is usually enough.

Thanks for the pointers. I'm about to go online for the first time ever in these types of games (and I'm not very good in general), so I appreciate the tips. I'll try my hand at FFA first to give everyone some killstreak fodder.

Another way to level up fast by piling up points is playing Domination. I'm not very good and was averaging 4000 points a game when starting out on Domination. Not sure what you guys get in a normal round of Team Deathmatch or FFA, but I wasn't getting close to 4000.

I usually average 16 kills in team deathmatch and therefore get about 1600 points. That's with no bonus points.

This and CTF are my favorite game types. Partly because you can rack up points without having to kill a ton of people and I like the "ebb and flow" that a good battle produces (especially in a close domination match, my team led one match the entire way...until the very end...and we lost by 1 point).

The only reason I haven't played these game types much is because I don't want people to get all whiney if I'm not as amazing at the games as they are.

And then kill them with their own weapon for an achievement and thousands of points.

I've found that a lot of people don't play the objective-based games "correctly". Rather than go for the objective, they camp it instead and cap people who show up. It's a bit annoying, but it does give newer players a chance to help get the objectives.

You're likely only going to take shit from people in the games where you don't respawn. That's because they can see what you're doing while they wait for the next round, and there's really nothing to do at that point but criticize the people who lived longer than you. Yeah, that was a nice surprise!

I just took some verbal abuse in my first MP experience. It's humbling to be called names by someone literally 1/3 my age. In fairness, while I'm not gay like he insisted several times, I was "fail."

I know, by the end of one game session I ended up calling my parents asking why they never told me I was a homosexual African-American.

I just automatically mute everyone in the pregame lobby.

I wish InfinityWard would install a "mute all" feature.

When somebody calls you a "****" make sure you make motorcycle noises. You'll get big laughs from those "in the know".

I remember racking up some serious points in COD4 after a few recommendations of Head Quarters. Does that still hold true for MW2?

I think you can get quite a few points on HQ, but your kills will be limited, generally - if your team gets the HQ, you can't respawn, if the other team has it, there are fewer and fewer enemies to kill as it goes on.

I agree, Domination is a great way to rack up a lot of points.

I broke down and bought it. I wasn't a huge CoD4 fan, but loved Quantum of Solace's MP which was a modified version of that engine.

MW2 feels much more like QoS in the multiplayer category, sans the cover aspect. It's nice finding people that actually want to play tactically as opposed to the yelling or utter silence that seems to have taken over CoD 4.

If you go into the privacy settings for the 360 you can set it where you only hear your friends talk. That's what I have been using.

Is it me or is the Wilhelm scream in this game?

I can't remember when it was now, but at the time I could have sworn I heard it.

The points in HQ have been reduced from COD4. I've not played it as much because of that.

Thanks for taking the time. I'll get there.