Topic: When you play a game simply for enjoyment, what difficulty do you choose?

I'm a reviewer... and sometimes I'm a crazy speedrunner, too.

I usually choose one lower than the most difficult. For example, Deus Ex: Human Revolution has 4 difficulty settings:
1. Easy
2. Normal
3. Hard
4. Hardest

If there are only 3 difficulty settings, I usually choose normal, unless I think the game is easy enough to play the most difficult mode.
EDIT: Also, Dead Space has 4 modes, but the hardest mode will only become available after you beat the highest available mode, so I play hard mode to unlock the hardest mode, first.

Normal.

when it's purely for enjoyment....
depends on the game, fast paced games I crank the difficulty up to the max so I can go all out destroying all in my path with lots of enemies, slow paced games I keep on normal or easy because I won't see extra action by going in harder modes anyway so the next best thing is enjoying it on the mode that will go by faster.
but I don't just play for enjoyment, there are competitive stuff, plus I love a challenge every once in a while, just not all the time.

Well I normally crank it up all the way. The reason simply being that I tend to get the most enjoyment out of games when I master them and bend them to my will, the more against the odds the better. If you play on easy, most games give you alot of leeway to ignore entire sections of the gamemechanic. Therefore you will not only miss out on alot stuff (that is no longer really necessary to get into) but you will also loose the sense of discovery and accomplishment that comes with it. There are really only very few games where I feel the challenge is kind of "cheap", I turn the difficulty down then.

This to a certain extent, unless the difficulty is cheap or gets to the point whereby its so high it starts to go against the point of the game (ie. Fire Emblem Awakening: Lunatic Mode). But it really depends on the game.

Normal/medium mode is usually what I play on for everything. If it's something insane then I'll drop it down to easy if I have that option.
On games I play through again, I might kick it up to hard.

I normally play new stuff on Hard. I always play Neo Geo on MVS. SNES depends on the Game. Megadrive / PC Engine / NES usually play on Normal. Stuff like Ikaruga I play on Normal as well. (Just not good enough at it yet).

NVM, I thought Deus Ex had 4 modes, but ya, I usually choose the second from the highest option.

I play default, unless I find it too easy/too hard

The easiest one.
I'm a sub-machine-gun-in-each-hand-running-and-jumping-through-windows kinda guy.

Playing COD (Campaign) where you die every 2 secs is no fun. The only time I die in the Campaign is when a grenade comes to close for comfort.

Usually normal or easy mode. I will admit that I found Casual Mode in Fire Emblem Awakening very appealing

Easy easy easy. And usually it's still too hard for me

Most people seem to enjoy default, guess its the Default choice for a reason.
I tend to go with the second hardest, or the hardest option available. I don't replay games often and want the challenge the first time.

As they would say in The Three Little Bears: This one's too hard, this one is too easy, but that one in the middle is juuusssttt right!!

Normal.

Oh I'm sure Lunatic+ is another beast in its own right, but I have never experienced it as I have no patience to get through Lunatic in Awakening. Maybe one day but not now.

Either the default or Hard. I like being challenged.

Laughs* Almost my exact way of thinking. Its a bit sad I think so basic like that

Well, now that I've figured out that I always play games for enjoyment, the next question is the difficulty... in older games, like SMB or Pac-Man, there is no difficulty setting; it's just 'Hard-as-nails' and you're stuck with it.

But really it usually depends on what I'm playing; I can handle harder difficulty modes in most games without trouble.