I found if it starts taking a while to find a match, cancel the search and start again. I played pretty much the entire evening Wingman the other night. It seemed to either connect right away or take a while. The matches were lag free once they started though. Hopefully they will get the rest of the kinks worked out soon.

Do they have the option of continuing to play with a public party after a match ends? I'm really sick of getting kicked out every time that match is over so I can start over again with a new group.

Once, it wasn't fun... I just ran around chainsawing.

After a match you press Y and you can invite them all to play on all your other matches.

I was having issues with lag also and it took forever to go in a match, I've noticed that its when it search for territories that it takes the longest time while horde is the fastest, elimination is not bad also but a little longer than horde.

It was taking me a hellava long time to find matches right after the game was released. Now it is taking about a 3rd of the time for me to find a match. Hopefully the trend continues for me.

just like the old gears! i am having some troubles, technically ive only been able to play one game so far online... ive spent hours searching for people to play with, and somehow im having no luck.

I am not enjoying the online Gears 2, I have actually gone back to playing COD4.  Single player was fun though, bit short, but very fun.

Ages to get into a match, and then it quit soon after I joined... very annoying

My only problem is that it will rarely ever connect to a match. I mean I can wait there for 30 minutes and not get into a game so its forced me not to even play online which is just sad. I want online! :(

They have to fix this, the Chainsaw is ruining multi-player as it is clearly overpowered. Plus hit detection for the chainsaw seems slightly off...too many times I have been shot right before I chainsaw someone, or shot someone before they chainsaw me, just to have the character walk right through the shot and chainsaw anyway.

That being said, I've played just about nothing but Gears 2 multiplayer since it's release and it's still a blast.

On topic: I haven't had any real issues with matchmaking since day one, and really haven't had any bullet lag (cable ISP, 360 hardwired to my router).