So the weekend was successful and much fun, but its also put me in a mood to ditch the mmo games and get back to good ol' xbox live. I've been completely out of touch with games out there so I was wondering :

What are the better multiplayer games out there. Preferable some that include both co-op and competitive type gameplay would be the best. Bring on the suggestions for the 360!

Castle Crashers? Co-op only, but cheap as chips!

I had heard the online coop was buggy and laggy, but that was during its original release. Has this been fixed at all?

Also, while I totally welcome Arcade suggestions, I'd also love to hear some about more recent, more advanced game.

How is Left 4 Dead? I'm usually not big on Zombie games. I generally don't like to be scared and for some reasons, zombies have always done that to me. However it seems to be more action packed than gruesome gratuitous horror. Is that the case?

played it for 53 hours in the last two weeks. besides my obviously not having a life, the game is hella fun. not really too scary unless you do sv_cheats and turn off illuminated fog (which makes the game much better, try it after you get some skillz), has a kind of action arcadey feeling to it, and flows very well with highs and lows and all kinds of different encounters in the four campaigns. the ai director which changes up zombie spawns and intelligently places special zombies makes it fun to play the campaigns over and over again, despite what you may think initially. however, it starts getting "serious business" and "****ing annoying" when you get pretty good at it and the noobs who think they can play expert get gangbanged flat on their backs on the first chapter, or they take ****ing 30 minutes dragging their asses through a chapter. when you have a kickass group though, it's glorious blazing through campaigns in under an hour. i haven't touched WAR in forever because of it :-/. i didnt have very high hopes for it at first after playing that one HL2 zombie mod, but this game is light-years ahead.

You'll love L4D, but I wouldn't pay more than 25 dollars for it. The 4 levels get tired fast.

L4D was amazing until this latest update. Now the randomness of the infected is way down. Especially on campaign mode. The tank spawns in the same spot EVERY time unless you reload the campaign, and the witch sticks to general areas instead of just appearing anywhere. I want my unpatched version back. Stupid Valve.

Fable II
Gears of War II
Halo 3
EndWar