What difficulty do you play on?

When you play a game for the first time what difficulty do you play on?

Medium always, except if it's a game I know I'm good at for example when Gears 3 comes out I'll be playing on hardcore.

Hard (Or harder than that, if it's unlocked from the beginning) 
If I play on Medium or Easy it's just to feel like I'm kicking ass fast. 
I never start a game on it though, it just feels way too easy for some reason o.O

Normal, unless its Fifa or Halo

Normal pretty much always, unless its a type of game I dont play all that often like an RTS or a JRPG

Normal, once I've beaten that I go and challenge myself (COD4 Veteran ftw)

Ya, I usually stick to the default Normal. I like a game to be challenging without being excessively difficult or frustrating. I just don't have the time or patience to stick with a game that's so hard it stops being fun.
 
I like stepping up to Hardcore or whatever when playing Co-op games like Gears or MW2 Spec-Ops, because for some reason getting your ass kicked with a friend is more fun than by yourself. Dying all the time by yourself just feel like punishment.

Normal, almost always. 
 
Unless it's like the third sequel to a game I'm stupid good at but that's not common.

Depends on the game.

Normal and depending on the game on easy, but if its a game like call of duty then veteran. 

Depends on the game, but usually either Easy or normal 
Easy for when I rent a game and want the trophies / finish it fast   
Normal is for everything else 

always normal. I played Darksiders on apocaliptic (or hard if you prefer) but that was the exception that proves the rule

Usually medium, I don't want to grind my way through. The only exception is for games I'm more comfortable with, like the Halo series which I tackle on Heroic.

Normal but I have no problem dropping it to easy. Some games (Red Faction Guerilla) are actually way better on the easy setting.

Hard usually.

Hard. The Normal difficulty these days is a joke. Like in ME2, I started on Veteran. Veteran in ME2 feels like a normal from the days of yore. Probably could've bumped it up to Hardcore. Insanity's for a second playthrough. 
 
Normal in a lot of games just feels pretty boring.

Normal or hard. Nowadays I start out on hard, and if I find it too difficult (then I mean like really annoying difficult) I turn turn it down/start over on normal.

Normal usually, although if it's a very challenging game (think Ninja Gaiden) I'll drop down to easy. I don't usually play hard or any higher than that unless I'm doing another playthrough and I think I can handle it, although I make an exception for the guitar on Rock Band.

Easy. I don't care for the "challenge" of gaming. I like my interactive stories to be just that.

Usually normal for my first playthrough. Rarely go back and play games on harder difficulties. Some games I'll set to the easiest setting if I just want to see the story of the game through to the end without much challenge.

Hard is the new normal

Normal (or whatever default is) for all games except FPS games, which I generally play on hard because I'm awesome at FPS games. That, and the difficulty of most shooters have been lowered quite a bit ever since they started optimizing the games for gamepads rather than mouse and keyboard, which I play on. 

I usually default to easy on most games (I'm not very good at games), but if the game is good, ill usually go through again on hard...

Hard.

The first time I play a game, it's on normal usually.

Normal, since I'm a reviewer and that's clearly the best difficulty.

For my first playthrough the one bellow top e.g Heroic on Halo.

Normal almost always. Don't need to be pulling my hair out cause of a frustrating game.

Whichever difficulty that makes getting trophies/achievements faster and easier.  Sometimes playing on the hardest mode is necessary to get an achievement, and other times difficulty doesn't matter when getting achievements.
 
I never play on the easiest mode though.  Gamer pride, I suppose.

If it's a hack 'n' slash game I play on the hardest mode available, if it's a shooter I play on the easiest mode available, and if it's anything else I play on the default difficulty.

The easiest that I can still earn achievements on

I start on the hardest or penultimate hardest setting - if it ever ends up being too rough you can always dial it down; learning a game on Hard just feels right somehow - you get your ass kicked and when you overcome it you get a sense of accomplishment rather than breezing through waves of enemies in 30seconds.

legendary

I really only play games once, so I crank up the difficulty so I can get as much out of it as possible.  Rarely if I play a game I am only mildly interested in for story and don't like the combat, or challenge of the game, I will drop it down to easy just to blast through it really quick.

Generally on Normal for first play through, then sometimes Hard if I do a second playthrough, depending on the type of game, and sometimes on whether there are achievements for higher difficulties.  There are exceptions of course, in both directions

• I played Ninja Gaiden Black about 2/3 through, and got frustrated.  When I tried again, several months later, my save file was corrupted, so I restarted on Ninja Dog (which you have to unlock, by deliberately sucking in the first level, then they make fun of you for it)
  
• I played Red Faction: Guerilla on Casual, because on Normal I had to spend more time trying not to die than actually wrecking things, and there weren't any difficulty based achievements anyway
• I played Devil May Cry 4 on Human since I wanted to play it quickly, before trying Bayonetta, and the achievements don't stack (i.e. beating it in Devil Hunter only unlocks the Devil Hunter achievements, rather than the Devil Hunter, and Human achievements)
• In the other direction, I played through Modern Warfare 2 on Veteran for my first playthrough, because I wanted the achievements, but wasn't sure if I wanted to by it yet.

Nothing lower than Normal/Medium. Not sure if games still do this these days, but in the past some games lock content/extras out of their Easy setting.

Easy/Normal. 
 
My pingas somehow doesn't grow bigger by playing on harder difficulties.

I start with normal for my first playthrough, then move on to the harder difficulties afterwards. 
 
Though in Bayonetta, I went to normal to hard to climax, and am now going through very easy mode and easy mode, so I kinda doing it backwards now, for the sake of getting an award for every chapter on every difficulty...

It depends if its a sequel or not. For instance when I played through Bioshock 2 I played on hard because I was familiar with what hard was in that game. If it is not a sequel I'm familiar with though I go with normal.

Whatever the default setting is.

normal

Normal unless it's a series I'm really familiar with. When Uncharted 3 comes out I'll totally start on hard. If I enjoy a game I will usually go back and play it on a harder difficulty if I have time. 

If there is one below max difficulty, I'll chose that., for example Hardcore in ME2. Otherwise, I stick to normal.

Usually I play on normal. Even if I'm renting them, I'll usually play through a game I really like twice. Playing a normal is usually a more fun experience because it's less stressful and I can enjoy the game for what it is. I'll make it harder for myself on subsequent playthroughs or if it's a sequel and I'm already proficient in the way the game works.

I usually go for normal, but I have no problem turning it down to easy if I think it would make me enjoy the game more. I almost never ever choose a hard mode unless I REALLY love the game.

Really depends on the game and genre. For Red Faction: Magilla Guerilla, I played on Easy because of that game's messed up difficulty and because I like blowing stuff up, NOT dying. For story-based games like Bioshock, I play on Easy as well the first time so I know what I'm doing and the combat doesn't get in the way of what's happening. I actually DO NOT recommend playing the first Bioshock on Easy unless you are under the age of 5. I never knew what Vita-Chambers were until I finished the game. For games like Call of Duty, I play on Regular until I get too frustrated (defending the bomb in the forest in MW2, anyone? Fucking hated that mission...).

Lately I've started playing through on the hardest difficulty possible for my first playthrough. So hard or normal.

Usually normal. But COD games, Veteran.. It's the only way to play.