I'm in the Aus/NZ region, I only play on PCs, I like to play casually on pubbie servers, and if at all possible, I like to play hardcore game mode.

I played the crap of of CoD4 when it was released, and did the same thing with MW2. Then I got busy... Now I'm looking to start playing again, but I'm not sure where all the players are these days. I started MW2 up and it seems to be a ghost town; only 2k players online, only really playing TDM, and seemingly no one in the Aus/NZ region.

CoD4 seems pretty lifeless too, or maybe I'm just not looking in the right places for servers. I don't mind buying MW3 or Blackops 2 or whatever, but given that Blackops 2 on Steam is US$100(!) I'd rather not do that just to find the servers are all deserted.

So...what game do I need to buy to find some public Aussie/NZ servers with people on them, ideally running hardcore (although not required), and hopefully with gameplay pretty similar to MW2 (or failing that, CoD4, both of which I loved)?