Seems like this is a good present to give as many people know about it. A couple of friends and I recently gave my friend MW2 and 1 yr of Xbox Live for his birthday. And glad to see someone else likes the SPAS-12! Anyway I do remember laggy servers with Left 4 Dead 1 (PC), but other than that I haven't really done much multiplayer on the PC recently. Ahh whatever lag will always be a part of online multiplayer for me I guess, simply because I live in Taiwan (until I move to the US or something) :(
 
Also you should listen to the MW2 Bombcast/Spoilercast from around the time that MW2 was released. They have quite an interesting discussion about plot motivations and stuff.

@finmon said:

"
I had no idea You Know Who was in it!  I'd be careful about investigating his dark motivations. "

" @Dafub: The online issues really feel like a step back don't they?  Asides from that though, I found the multiplayer maps to be a lot worse than those in CoD4. The layout of most of the maps encourages camping and sniping, which, for me, is just not fun. I find it a lot more interesting to be constantly on the move, relying on reflexes, quick thinking and aiming ability to do well in a match. "

" I got it as a christmas present.  The single Player is pretty good but the plot "twist" is a bit of a head scratcher what exactly is you know who's motivation for doing what he does?  The multi player while good has reintroduced me to something I have not experienced in a long time e.g lag and host drops.  This happens on 360 but on PC it's been an alien experience for ooh a decade at least.  CS with dedicated servers on a dial up modem back in 2000 was not a bad proposition at all.  I'm convinced they dropped dedicated server free to download software so they can make money down the line from server rentals.  At least thats my guess.   I do love the SPAS 12 as a secondary though  :) "