Yeah, so I finally caved in and paid the 30 bucks for a 12 month subscription of Xbox Live. I'm usually content playing single-player but I thought I'd give this multi-player thing a try for real. Here are my experiences so far.
 
Rainbow 6: Vegas
I've always enjoyed the Rainbow 6 series a lot but I've never tried it online before. I was surprised that not everyone was as super skilled as I had thought. First game I played I had around 8/15 KD ratio, even though my team lost. Compared to my god-awful Gears Of War stats when I tried playing that game online a while back (I had a free 1 month subscription) this was really good. I've done well enough in most matches to have fun. The game seems really balanced so I think I'll continue playing this one for some time. 

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix
I've always been awful at fighting games with the exception for Mortal Kombat 3, so it was no surprise when I got my ass handed to me in SSF2THDR. At least the game was nice enough to give me an achievement after 5 consecutive failures. I know playing with a gamepad isn't helping me much but I don't know if I'm willing to pay up for an arcade stick just yet. If you feel you're bad enough at fighting games and need another crappy opponent to play against, feel free to add me!
 
I'll write more later when I try some other games.