Hardest available on everything but RTS games. Although, I think I'm going to try that out. Best way to learn is to face somebody better than you. I always think, that if you start a game on the hardest difficulty, you adjust to it quicker than you would if say you started on normal, then upped the difficulty. I rarely play games repeatedly because the story is too clear in my head and I get bored.

I usually start with hardest difficulty, most games I'm good at are too easy. On replay I go on easiest, just for the kicks

Depends.

FPS: Start on normal. Beat it. Work up to "nightmare" after Hard on the next playthrough.

Dragon Age: Hard, all the time. Except in the Circle Tower which I want over with ASAP.

Demon's Souls: Black Tendency. All the time.

Generally speaking I set it to the highest difficulty possible right off the bat, then if I do a replay I'll set it down one or two.

Oh boy, wait until you run into her again.

Normal, then I go up to the next level.

For FPS games I like playing on the hardest setting for the actual challenge and because I'm just good enough to do it. In other games I just keep it to normal so I can enjoy it more without yelling at my screen.

Too lazy to change default setting

I always start a game on the hardest difficulty available so that I can stack the difficulty achievements into one playthrough. After that, I play the game on the easiest setting if I go back to it.

I start on normal if there is a choice, and I go up one level if I decide to go through a second time.

I play it on normal at first because the fighting isn't too difficult but not too easy either so I can still enjoy the combat whilst also enjoying the story. I only really play on the hardest difficulty because I want the achievement or something but that's mostly only in FPS.

Always normal on the first play because I want to play the game with the dev's intentions and balancing. Also because I'll get furious if I constantly die every few minutes if I play at a very hard difficulty.

When I complete the game, I'll play on hard. Though I'll never play on anything harder than that. (For RPGs, I always stick to normal)

I once managed to complete Medal of Honor: Allied Assault at the highest difficulty. My monitor and desk back then got a lot of hits. The soliders' AI is terrible... they aim at you through the walls and as soon as they spot your toe around a corner, they shoot...removing around 1/5th of your health. The Sniper Town level was the worst. Snipers everywhere, aiming at your toes as soon as they saw it. No way to hide, no way to take cover.

Normal first, but the replay depends on the game. Usually I play it harder, for example Thief and Half Life, but sometimes I just like mowing people down, so I make it easier, for example, Rome TW and Unreal.

I chose Harder first, then up one level. The way I look at playing games is, I don't want to dive into the hardest setting first, because usually they reserve the last slot for almost masochistic players, so I go one below. After that's done and I had my fun I usually take it up a notch. I don't know, after having my xbox for so many years and going after those "beat on hard/harder/omg suicide wtf" achievements, my aptitude for playing games at their hardest has increased dramatically.

Depends on the game, mostly games that are like action based like FPS I play on easy just to get through the story, rarely do I play game on the hardest unless the challange is ballanced like games like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas and Vegas 2, you get more out of the gameplay if you play on the hardest difficulty and the AI is no different then it was on normal---just manage your ammo better and keep your head down.

Now games like Tron: Evolution I play on Easy only: One because I like to play through the story and second it keeps the game pretty balanced I think. Then there games like Edler Scrolls. I like to keep the game difficulty at around -73, it's easy yet still has a bit of challange to it.

Hard for most games unless it's really difficult then I'll bump it back to normal.

Depends on the game. Most new games will be on the hardest, while older ones will be on normal. For replays, I'll leave it the same, bump it up a level, or max out the difficulty, depending on the game.

I should mention that I have no qualms with "cheating" or dropping difficulty to make the game more enjoyable, though.

It depends on the game.
In Oblivion, I kept the difficulty at medium
In COD and BFBC, I always play on the hardest difficulties
On CIvilization, I always play on hardest

I guess I just like a challenge sometimes.

I start with Easy, or whichever is the lowest difficulty (though rarely would I start with "easiest"). I play mainly for the story, but, because I'm playing for the first time, I need to get used to the game mechanics and nuances. After I feel competent on Easy, and if I replay the game, I would increase the difficulty by one level. This is the method I've used with the God of War games, since each one has slightly different combat moves and strategies needed to defeat enemies. Also, the anolog-stick minigames on the PSP don't register the anolog motions well, so it helped not to have the snot beat out of Kratos on my first boss fight.

I play default difficulty first, and then either stick with default for subsequent playthroughs or make it easier. I take the difficulty on Oblivion down a few notches to make it feel just right.

For every modern game i take the hardest setting, but if i am playing some old school RPG(Fallout, Baldur`s Gate) then i keep the default.

Normal for the initial start up game to test the waters, so to speak. If I get a little way into it and decide combat is too easy for me, I re-start on the hardest.

I'm kind of strange because I don't want combat to be 'killed in 1 second/in 1 blow' or 'find the random solution/jump spot to make it' (I farking hate random trial & error puzzles/situations) sort of hard, but neither do I want to be able to defeat everything without taking a lot of damage. So...depends on the game.

If it's not single-combat type of game (like a RTS) then I'll usually stick to Normal for the entire first playthrough and then bump it up on replays/once I'm familiar with the game mechanics.

I usually play on normal difficulty for a few minutes to figure out the controls and basic mechanics of the game. Then I usually start over and play the game on the highest difficulty.

Normal. Some games I'll crank up the difficulty, but never on my first playthrough.