Man, I missed Lost Planet. It was hilarious how easy the first boss on hard mode was, compared to my first attempt when I first got the original last year. Aww, sweet nostalgia.
Akrid Hunter is loads of fun. Usually about 12 humans (with the occasional mech) vs 4 Akrids. It was pretty awesome from either side; keeping your distance with ranged weaponry as you run and try to stay alive or charging head-first to engage in an epic mech vs alien battle, or just trying to kill everything in your path as one of the giant Akrid. Hehehehehe.
VS Annihilator is also pretty cool. Two teams, one mech per team. First team to kill the enemy mech wins. Most of the matches I played in had rocket launchers as default weapons, which made for pretty insane fights.
I also tried a bit of Counter-grab. 1 or 2 data posts to capture. Basically, you need to cap and hold for a certain amount of time. I guess it's just like team king of the hill. It was fun, but maybe that was from the 'flamethrower as default weapon' setting.
So yeah, good variety. No change has been made for party matchmaking for PvP (ie. none), but I guess that's fine if there's just Nick and me playing it, since that'll be simple enough to coordinate with voice channels. The game should last us a while, or at least be a good diversion here and there. There was no lack of matches.
Good old Vegas2 <3 <3 Wip was on a bit later on, but he was playing Rock Band. I was too enthralled in Colonies, in any case.