I don't like it much either, MMO's are boring as hell without exception and playing other games runs the risk of either;
A: Meeting preteen douchebags who fuck up the channels and cheat or,
B: Being severly owned by someone much, much better than you

I'd say that currently I look to spend around 70% of my game time on SP / Offline games and 30% offline.

I don't hate online but I get bored of it fairly quickly now - too many hours on Doom, Doom 2 and Quake I think.

I do like the challenge of online but as I played so much in my youth (I'm 42 BTW) I want more than the same CTF, DM, etc. with better graphics but no-one seems to want to take that risk. MMO's can be fun and I've dablled with WOW, EVE and LOTRO but I find there's too much grinding early on. I'd love someone to come up with something innovative that combined depth of gameplay with online. I will say Warhawk has been fun (Zones mainly as it requires proper teamwork - at least to do very well anyway) and I still play that the most when I do play online.

Mostly I want to sit with something like Uncharted or RFOM or R&C and just have fun these days.

I do like coop though and have high hopes for the coop in RFOM2 - coop through a challenging SP against good AI is the best online for me right now.

However I just got a Wii and I can sense my online time moving over to family time on the Wii. I think LBP will also be something I play more than traditional online MP.

As for the age thing I think it depends.  I know older online gamers who love it but mostly they seem to have come to games late.  A lot of people I know like me seem to have angle away from online as in a sense we've already done that to death when we were younger.

I do have to confess though that every now and then I have to play something like COD4 and just wait patiently in dark corners ('cause you tend to be patient by my age) and ambush whichever youngster's being a prick on the server.  Often this entails taking myself out too but what the heck - I'm not worried about my score so much as having fun teasing those who often ruin online gaming.

I reckon i fall into the coming to gaming late category. most games I will try online but after a few trys go back to offline playing. I will probably keep dipping in and out but I would still  like the offline aspect to go back to the more traditional gameplay ie health packs and less checkpoints somehow it was more challenging when you were down to your last bar of health in a mission and you knew if someone hit you you were going back a long way it kept you on your toes.

It also meant better value for your hard earned bucks imo.

btw hope you enjoy the wii my daughter has one and loves it. I played mario kart a few times with her and it;s a blast.

Single player isn't getting shorter. I have an achievement for beating Contra in under 15 minutes.  Online is awesome.  Especially with voice chat.  And if you don't like young kids talking shit.  You can still just turn off voice chat.  Seems pretty easy to avoid that trouble.  You just can't get AI that is as dynamic as playing a real person.  No two matches are the same.  Bots can be predictable.  And if cranked up to the point where they can be a challenge, they just utilize cheap cheats to make them better. 

When it comes to "b" so true... When you buy a game later than others they're mostly owning you online or by people from a region who had the game sooner, like Japanese for instance. No, then I'd rather stick with offline gaming or game with people I know.

Online gaming is great, i play online everyday, my only problem with it is the fact that MS charge me to play online on my 360

I can't say I love online play. but it's okay. Although most of my experiances with it is like the one from WOW. Where I just started a character played for a couple of hours. Then some one decided it would be fun to take all their cool new equipment and weapons on their high level character and slaughter the newbs.

in terms of online gaming, i mainly play Gears of War (360), Call of Duty 4 (PS3), Unreal Tournament (PS3) and Resistance Fall of Man (PS3)

I had the 360 for less than a monh so enjoying the free gold month....
about a week ago, after one of my first Halo 3 online experience, I get a 12yo that sends me a voice message saying "can't believe you couldn't play better than that". Well I didn't get offended as i'm new to the game and i really dislike dual analog to aim, so I guess I really sucked, but one has to wonder, what are people thinking to send messages like that to others? I mean the only purpose of this is to ennoy the reciepient.
The same goes with the people that have a wierd ennoying noise on their mic (on purpose).

I recall when speaking came into CS... I could mute people with one click of the mouse, I can't believe I can't do that in GTA.

Online is awsome amongst friends.
It's good when there is no talking.
It sucks when there is talking and you don't know the people.

Only problem is that as much as people can be anoying, bots always have a degree of predictability that is something the online gets rid off.

I find that online play on consoles is still too young. Playing games like CoD online can be incredibly frustrating with issues such as lag and connection issues. Not to mention how shit a p2p system actually is. If a sore-loser gets host, you can guarantee yourself at least a quater of a game.