i finally came to the realization today that i'm just not feeling the mulitplayer in gears 2 anymore. it's still fun at times, but almost a year later and i'm still having to wait 3-5 minutes for a session to be created in matchmaking. it seems even slower when trying to find a game for the new DLC for some reason too.
i'm not sure what's happened, it's seems like it was faster for awhile, but the speed of finding teams seems similar to that of when the game first came out. whether this is because of an influx of people playing the game because of the dark corners maps or not, i don't know....but it's still irritating.
i'll definitely buy gears 3 when it comes out, and i might still play this every now and then, but i think i'm done with it for awhile, at least for the most part. the matchmaking, the inability to party up or at least stick with people you're playing with after a match, and not being able to set up longer matches by adjusting the number of rounds has really watered down the experience. hopefully they learn from their mistakes when making the next game.