8 weapons is 2,187,500 times more boring than 17.5 million.

Having played the shit out of Borderlands and recently finishing Resistance 3, I do believe I agree.  R3's arsenal (which if I recall correctly is indeed eight total guns) were all well-designed and served a purpose, and I was constantly switching between them depending on the situation.  I now realize that as I was playing Borderlands, I pretty much stuck with the same set of weapons throughout the entire game, occasionally upgrading similar guns for a little more stopping power.

The shooter fan in me wants to agree that 8 is enough, but the RPG fan in me wants another assault rifle with +3 fire damage, so, I'm kind of conflicted.

I liked Borderlands for a while. Around the second half though, I was growing tired of all the pointless guns in my strange firearm collection. Seriously, I only needed about three weapons. All the other 365 guns in the game took up space. Ultimately, each one only did a variation of the same damned thing.

I think the real problem you're having is that Borderlands did not provide a varied enough arsenal for you, rather than too many options. I loved Borderlands (and played waaaaay too much of it,) but I'll agree that many of those millions of guns were just too similar (the gold and pearlescent weapons were the only ones that felt unique at all.)

What Gearbox needs to do (and from what I've been reading and hearing, are doing,) is to not make more guns, but make more variety. I have no problem with 20 shotguns if all of them have a unique feel and have different uses (especially if I'm playing a class that gets bonuses to shotguns.) 

It sounds like Borderlands 2 is fixing some of the issues you have, so I wouldn't count it out just yet.

Borderlands only HAS about eight guns. You just get infinite variations within those gun types. Shotguns, snipers, smg's, etc. They all function differently and have different purposes, just like in CoD, the different types of guns fit in the different roles they have to fill. Within those groups, you get to choose what you find to be the best for your playstyle, and honestly, I'd rather have that choice than not.

Halo, the original, always pissed me off because there wasn't a gun that suited me. The AR wasn't accurate enough, the pistol had a small clip, the sniper was too slow and limiting. Halo 2 gave me the BR, which is exactly what I wanted. Same with Borderlands. I hated most sniper rifles until I found one that just clicked with me. In something like Saint's Row: The Third, you get only one sniper rifle, and frankly, it doesn't do what I want a sniper to do, so I'm cut out of a whole style of play. Less is more, yes, but it's better to overproduce and cut out what you don't want than underproduce and be left wanting.

I will say, one of my favorite games is Half-Life 2. Part of that is due to it's amazing story, characters, atmosphere, and physics puzzles, but part of it is due to the small, yet perfect arsenal. Each gun has a very specific use and purpose, and each is designed to perfection.

Heck no. The more guns the better, and Borderlands did it right. I want a bajillion "awesome" firearms in my game, and that is a huge reason why I loved Borderlands. The loot was great. Every 10 minutes I would come across a new, awesome weapons that changed the way I played the game. A shotgun that shoots rockets? A sub machine gun with flaming bullets? A alien rifle that destroys enemies?? YES PLEASE!!!!

I hate shooters that have absolutely no originality with their weapons, or too few of them. I am really starting to hate most shooters that come out today simply because there are only so many AK47's one can shoot before you get tired of shooting them. I nearly cried when an IGN poll asked readers what game had the best weapons, and they passed up games like Resistance 3 to vote for Battlefield 3.

I am not joking when I say that I quite literally lost nearly all respect for my fellow gamers when I read that. To think that those brain washed fools are such slaves to media hype that they could honestly think that BF3's weapons, which have literally been done about 6 bajillion times before in games before it, were better than a game like Resistance 3's truly uniquw arsenal. My only complaint about Resistance 3's guns were that there wasn't more of them.

8 guns is for wussies. Give me a ton of weapons and let me experiment. Let me choose which weapon is right for which situation. Let me try them out, weight their strengths and weaknesses, and make an informed decision. It's hard to do that when all you have is 2 different types of machine guns, a shotgun, pistol, knife, sniper rifle, and rocket launcher. I've already shot those guns 6 bajillion times. In Borderlands, I shot many weapons that I've never shot before in a video game.

Like I said...A shotgun that shoots rockets.

I don't think it's really fair to apply strict shooter conventions to Borderlands. Borderlands is an action RPG with shooter elements. Saying you only want 8 guns in Borderlands is like saying you only want 8 archaic weapons in Diablo.

It's cool that you don't like Borderlands, but don't try to shoehorn it into something that it's not. It's not a first-person shooter, and it's not going to be a better game with only 8 guns. What makes for a good FPS is not the same as what makes for a good loot-driven action RPG.

Comparing two different genres and saying one should conform to the other doesn't really get us anywhere. You might as well say that fighting games only need 3 characters because that's how many you get in a typical side-scrolling beat-em-up, and they both feature hand-to-hand combat.

I didn't play Borderlands because it had a ton of guns.

I played it because it was a great co-op game.

I have played many FPS over the years, and my absolute favorite weapon collection has to be that found in Unreal Tournament 2000.  Yes you had your standard sniper weapon, short range shotgun on steroids thing which were not much different for other games.  The other selections were unique and fun.  There was a instant hit rail gun, an energy/plasma thing like the empire energy bolts, a thing that shot sticky health sucking blobs that would stick anywhere and be persistent for a while.  There was a gun that shot grenade/mines too.  There may have been a few more, but the fun was that in addition to the usual kinetic lead and explosive throwers, there were interesting creative ways to rob your enemy of health.  Pretty sure the total count was around 8 or so.  Yea, I know it's dated now, but try it to see some fun weapon alternatives.