His ability to play online is at the mercy of Microsoft engineers sent to scan servers for illegal players.
i don't download games. Mainly because I download enough music to feel guilty about it, and the massive amount of gaming info about games just seconds after their releases have helped me cut back on bad purchases.
I have bought many PS2 games back in the day that just plain sucked, but looked really cool, and it sucked for me because I didn't know to, or was just behind the times with internet blogging and reviews on games.