I always start on medium, regardless of the difficulty levels have 3 or 4 settings. What about everyone else?

Same. If its too easy then sometimes I just restart and go hard.

Whatever the hardest one is.

I always do the setting just below the hardest (ex. Heroic in Halo 3, Hardened in COD4). This keeps things challenging, while at the same time letting me learn the game.

If I had played the COD4 campaign on an easier difficulty at first, I would have finished the game far too quickly (this happened to my brother, who played on regular and finished the game within a day)

I do go back and beat the games on their hardest settings afterward.

I put it on the medium setting and play it through like that. If I want to play it again, I up the difficulty as much I believe will make the game challenging again.

Medium the first time through. Hardest possible after that.
I'd like to say "Hardest, always", but that's just not true, especially since games have mistaken difficulty with "quicksave-riffic" a lot lately. I stay away from easy if I can, though...

Easy the first time through so I can take in the story without having to worry about getting killed every 5 seconds, then, if it's worth it, I go through a few more times on the harder difficultys to get as much balls to the wall fun as I can out of it.

Verdammnis:
I always do the setting just below the hardest (ex. Heroic in Halo 3, Hardened in COD4). This keeps things challenging, while at the same time letting me learn the game.

If I had played the COD4 campaign on an easier difficulty at first, I would have finished the game far too quickly (this happened to my brother, who played on regular and finished the game within a day)

I do go back and beat the games on their hardest settings afterward.

same 'ere

depends. Usually I do easy and then the hardest one after finishing it.

I used to start on easy just to experience the story, etc. but now I'm quite a bit better at games and will start on medium/normal

Depends on the game really.
For something that i'm REALLY into (i.e Call of Duty, Halo, Half-Life etc.) i'll always put it on the hardest setting, mainly cos i want the game to last and get the most out of it =]

Other games i generally tend to leave it on the default or medium.
I don't get people who go through those type of games again on hard after completing it on medium.
Unless there's some kind of substantial reward or the game has tremendous replay value i find it to be arbitrary and a waste of time.

The first time I play a game and I haven't played any other in its series if it's part of a series, I'll go with the normal difficulty, then, unless the game blows, I'll go through it on the hardest difficulty. But when I play a game that I've already played the prequel to (God of War 2, Kingdom Hearts 2, for examples) I'll go with the harder difficulty right away.

Normal, Medium, whatever the middle difficulty is. If it's two easy after a decent amount of time, I'll up it, and start over. I usually end up playing through all the difficulties (Sans the easiest) anyway.

One step above medium usually...
and if it ends up being too hard I restart on medium. usually dont have to though, but its gotten more common, I think games are getting harder. FPS's I usually can do hard, other games I often have to revert to normal.

Well on shooters I usually click the toughest one, and if that one is something like "INSANE!!!" or "MASOCHISTIC!" or "xTR333m" then I click the one right under it.

Very Easy. I like to get the gist before the swing.

Depends on the game. Ace Combat, Medium just so I can get used to the new physics, then rapidly progress to Ace. FPS' usually easy because I am not so good on them... Everything else usually easy so I can get a feel for it.

I'm good at predicting humans, not the AI, so I go with medium/normal unless I start berzerking without any thought as to death. I usually steer away from hard/nightmare etc difficulty because it's not a challenge in a "catch a bus in the rain" kind of way, but more in the way that the computer is a cheating bastard .

I think its interesting to see how many play through the games to see the story.

I think I am a bit odd-- I like to play a game almost all the way through, until about the last level, and then I never beat it. Its like I store up game endings, and then beat them all within a weekend-- esp when its a weekend without good movies on or something.

I do like to play through a game on easy first before attempting anything more "heroic"-- but alot of games these days don't have difficulty setting, particularly adventure games. Maybe that's a commentary on the replay value.

Now I always start an FPS on hard because they are way to easy. On other games I will usually pick meduim.

Really depends on the game, but I'll usually choose the second hardest difficulty. It gives me enough challenge to make the game last longer while leaving a good reason to replay it if I find the game worth it. But if the first few levels are too difficult I'll usually start over on the next difficulty down, and if they're too easy then the next one up.

In Any game i immediately start on the hardest mode possible, even if its something like 'nightmare evil death mode for pros'

on an RTS, this is so i can learn everything an AI will throw at me, and so i find that kind of difficulty and demanding mental juggle the normal, or else it will be twice as hard coming from medium or easy.

On an FPS it is so i find that difficulty the normal, so in truth its not that demanding, i you learn to play that ways its nothing special, and once you've done this a few times on a few games, your 'Mr Awesome'

Your mind simply adapts, push it to its limits and its limits expand

In Racing Games (Arcadey Ones) and Shooters i usually go for the second hardest as well.

Especially if i know beforehand that the game will be rather short.

I'm rather surprised that, after i found the previous Installments rediculously hard in the latter half, i'd wish i could make the missions in GTA IV a bit harder...

Easy call me a retard i don't care I like feeling like freaking god.(Then hardest to get my gamerscore up... yes I'm pathetic.....)

Meduim always.

gotta say that i hate the AI in many rts's, cause, as the Franco said, they all cheat like hell, so in rts games i start on normal, no higher than that.
in fps's tho, i start it up at hard because i don't play the AI to test myself, just for laffs at how crazy hardcore enemies get. then i play people for real, because no matter how good an AI is (as long as its not cheating) it won't be as creative as humans can be in a firefight (just look at bf 2 and 2142 those AIs suck massive dong, even on the hardest setting)

I normally start at normal difficulty. Then if it gets too hard then I'll drop it to easy but that doesn't happen too often.

I tend to do better at console games than pc games now but I don't know why.

depends on the game, if its something like PGR I'll start on Platinum, if it's Guitar Hero/Rock Band (Guitar only) then I'll start on Hard, if it's an FPS I'll generally start on medium if it's on console or hard if it's on PC

I generally start with hard, since it seems to be better to tone down the difficulty 1/4 the way through a game than beat it and then decide it was too easy.

Plus it seems games have been made laughably easy in the past few years. Bioshock was laughably easy, even on hard. The brass balls achievement was a free 100 gamerscore, really.

If a difficulty level has more content added to it (Plok), then I'm sold. When it comes to Infinity Engine games, if I get more EXP for a difficulty level then I choose that one. I'm currently working my way through the original Icewind Dale on Insane difficulty on Heart of Fury mode (Recommended for level 9+ parties who've already completed the game... or was that 13+?)... with a team of level 1s. I appear to have hit a small snag in the form of too many Goblins to kill. Sure I'll work around that sometime soon...

I always start one below the highest difficulty. That way, most of the time the game is challenging enough, while at the same time one has another playthrough to look forward to. Starting at the highest difficulty feels like a shame, because when you're done you're done.

I tend to start on the hardest, I try to get the most challenge out of the game, and I generally don't have the time/cant be arsed to play through it twice.

I play on the hardest I can, while that means there is really no re-playability i find the easier settings not challenging enough. i.e. crysis, COD4, quake 4, etc etc

"Nightmare" setting of course! Ah Doom.... how I loved thee...

But actually I'm fibbing, I usually play games on medium and then switch to harder if it's turning out to be too easy.