Well, Halo is basically the same thing when it comes to the game types, and that's where my experience lie.

Unless you're playing with an experienced team, voice communication means nothing but shit. The "13 year old brats" will ignore almost every useful tactical tips or plans you share and will instead try to do the exact opposite in order to not seem like your bitch.

As a result, I was actually happy when my microphone broke approximately 3 years ago and never bothered buying a new one. Instead, I just borrow my brother's when guys I know wants to play, and we mostly do co-op anyway.


And yes, I do mute the little bastards.

Here's a list of game modes in COD and how much teamwork they require:
-Free for all: Everyone for themselves. No teamwork.
-Team deathmatch: Well its team deathmatch. Still teamwork isn't vital as someone good can singlehandedly change the game.
-Kill Comfirmed: TDM but you have to collect tags. Same as above for teamwork.
-Domination: King of the hill variant but with 3 permanent flags in the map. Teamwork REALLY helps, but can be played alone.
-Ground War: KC/TDM/DOM but with bigger 9 V 9 teams. Teamwork becomes more important here.
-Demolition: 2 bomb sites which have to destroyed with one team on offense, one on defense. Teamwork is quite important to plan an advance on the bombs or to defend them.

-Headquarters: Have to capture designated areas in map for a short period of time until it moves. Again teamwork is quite important but can be attempted alone.

-Capture the flag: Its CTF. Teamwork helps very much, but can go solo.
-Sabotage: Neutral bomb in map which needs to be picked up by either team to destroy the other's bomb site. Teamwork is paramount.
-Team defender: Similar to CTF but people grab and hold the flag to score point for the team. Again teamwork is extremely important to lock down flag effectively.
-Infected: Similar to infected in halo, one guy starts off infected and knifes to infect others. No teamwork necessary.
-Drop zone: Moving capture zones which when captured give free killstreaks to the team. Can be played by yourself pretty easily.
-Hardcore game modes: Low heatlh+no hud version of dom/tm/ctf, etc. Similar to what is stated above.
-Barebones game modes: No killstreak game modes of tdm/kc/dom. Similar to what is stated above.

Most played game mode is TDM followed by KC I believe.

Well I think you get the picture that there are modes to accommodate both team and single players. If you are playing as part of a team, you will rickroll randoms. But if you are a very good player, you can contest an entire opposing team by yourself. I personally play by myself quite a lot and don't bother even picking up my headset because all I hear is racist and whiny people complaining about how they got owned. So unless you have a clan or a party, don't even bother trying to talk to your team as they will only start insulting your mother. Just put on some metal in the background and pwn some noobs.

If you like hearing little kids screaming cuss words and stupid names at you then yes I would call it a Social Experience. Now, if you like to not hear deranged kids then no, unless you have everyone on mute (Like you said.) I also find it nice how you get T-bagged when you're dead; that's the best experience ever! *sarcasm*

Not really. When I played cod I would never talk to anyone or discuss strategy because it's unnecessary as nobody really used a strategy. It's all just run and gun with a minimal amount of team work, even in modes like headquarters or domination where you would expect to be trying to work as a team. Basically in cod, there aren't any real teams, they are really just people who you don't shoot. This isn't a bad thing, it's just the way the game is. The only time I would ever communicate with people would be if they were my friends, and our conversations would hardly ever be about the game, it's just a chance to talk.

But for the last 2 years my multiplayer shooter of choice has become Battlefield and I haven't played much cod at all, so maybe it's different now.

Edit: I eventually just started to mute most people.

Oh it is very much a social experience. I would play with many people, but mostly with my main cod friend constantly talking in private chat. We would usually go private because we would play free for all/ deathmatch. We would talk trash constantly laughing it up when we owned the other guys or just told the locations of cheaters/boosters. Socializing on the game was an everyday thing for me for months on live. When I would chat with groups I got in the weirdest most racist, sexist and sexual chats because that was the norm. I did not contribute to it, but mostly made fun of the pricks for it. People would talk about all kinds of things and it is really fun. In fact, thinking about makes me think it is time to finally get modern warfare 3 as the series has given me some of my favorite gaming experiences of all time. Not that it was all great I did not like a lot of the angry people

It got boring after playing the same game for too long.

It's definitely more social on Xbox Live than it is on PSN, that's for sure. On PSN hardly anyone talks and I bet most people don't even have a headset connected.

You're wrong. That may have been true back in 2006. It is now 2012 and many people have headsets. Too many in fact. 

Most played mode is Team Deathmatch.(My most played is Capture the Flag, I recently started doing Demolition)
Trash talk doesn't bother me. I only mute people who are screaming and being annoying.
No problem with 12 year olds. I did run into this kid who was calling other people kids lmfao. Hilarious.
The outcome of the match is in NO way random. The team with the best communication will have a much higher chance of winning. If none of the teams communicate then you better hope the noobs who just started playing a few days ago get put in the other team.

Oh. Truth be told it was almost a year ago I played Call of Duty online (because I hate Call of Duty. It was my friend who forced me).

But I often do play Crysis 2 online on PSN and there's only occasional talk in maybe every 5th match, mostly between two friends who hooked up to socIalize. I have seldom heard any strategy talk on PSN.