One game that seems to have blown everyone away is Gears of War, I know what you are thinking, and you’re saying WOW that is a brilliant news flash.  But one thing that is a little bit different about Gears of War is that the Story mode of the game is actually very short.  There are posting on the Internet and Podcasters who have said that they have actually beaten the game in as little as six hours.  It took me a little longer to beat the game, I had to play in shorter segments and never really got to sit down for an afternoon and bang out a long six hour session.  But one thing remains the actual story of the game is quite short.  But the multi player aspects of the game are outstanding and offer replay value that can have players playing this game for months probably even years.  The online experience in Gears is a really strong, and the fact that you can have a friend jump in and play the story mode of the game with you side by side almost seamlessly is such a great feature of the game.  The single player story mode to Rainbow Six Vegas is fairly short also, but Rainbow Six has built its success on the fact that the multi player is nothing short of incredible, and keeps players coming back again and again for months.  In fact I would go so far as to say that just a while back Multiplayer was simply an add on feature to the single player story mode. 
Now I feel that the Multiplayer mode is the most important feature of the game and Single player is just something to get comfortable with the control scheme and kill some time when your friends are not online.  This brings me to the main point of this article, and that is should developers who want to create successful games concentrate more of their efforts on the multiplayer aspects of the game.  Most games follow an established sequence of events, you go through some sort of training, or maybe the first level is kind of a training mission to get you use to the control scheme.  Then you begin playing missions that progressively get harder and harder until you finish the game.  What if developers approached game design from a different angle?  What if the whole story mode was based around the idea that it prepared you for multiplayer?  In a sense the whole story mode was a training session to develop the skills you will need to be successful at multi player.  The idea that you could play through the story mode with another player was more along the lines of two people trying to learn the game, or one more experienced player is helping along a newer player?  Do not get me wrong I think that developers should still create a strong story mode that is an involving story.  But aspects of the story mode would show you where on the map the good sniper spots are, help build some strategy, learn how to play as a team.  I think right now story modes help you become comfortable with the control scheme, and some have multi player maps based on the story mode.  But they do not train you to play multi player, which is fast becoming the main part of the game that most gamers play.