I am preordering it today, but only because of a sweet deal at EB Games (Buy MGS4 and a MGS4-t-shirt for 0.1$ and two PS3 games). I would have bought it anyway, but not until later as I am very poor at the moment.
I saw all the GT retrosepctives to have an idea of what I'm going in to, and I am definetly excited to play it.

I will.

But I plan to wether play the other MGSs before, or watch the gametrailers summary. Will depend mostly on how much time I'll have these next monthes...
I always wanted to play MGS so it might be the right time.

I played a demo of MGS 1 or MGS 2 ( can't remember ) it was fun but i've never really been into the series until now.

This bodes very well for MGS4

I am buying MGS 4 and I have never played the other MGS games in the series. MGS 3 would be worth trying out but MGS 2 is apparently disappointing. The original MGS, I heard is a good game but the graphics would look considerably dated.

If I were going to play MGS4, I would likely get MGS2:Substinence and MGS3:Substinence, and at least attempt to play through them first.

I will definetly try out MGS4 even though I never was a fan of stealth. I heard "balls-out action" is now an option from some reviewer and I'd like to think that was true. And Kojima is a genius, you have to respect him.

Theres 4~ people on my side that will be buying the game without having ever played a previous MGS

hehe - well I only just finished MGS2 and played MGS1 last year - all after I saw the E3 2006 15min. trailer of MGS4 and fell in love with it, so while I technically already played 2 MGSes I only did so to be able to enjoy MGS4 to the fullest - MGS4 made me a fan of the franchise long before it was even released :P

wow, I tought I was the only one