After many a year of using track balls, touch pads, and stock mice, I decided it was finally time to get a decent gaming mouse. For my first mouse that costs more then 5 dollars, the Sidewinder X5 is like night and day from what I'm used to playing with. This puppy comes with 9 buttons total, two programmable thumb buttons, three programmable DPI buttons on the top, a quick launch button for Microsoft's IntelliPoint program, and of course the basics. The on the fly DPI switching alone makes this a fantastic mouse, perfect for any FPS that will cross your path.
The mouse it self is huge, bulky, and not very attractive looking. You'll need some big meat hooks in order to enjoy using this right hand only mouse. But from a comfort stand point, it fits like a glove, not too light, nor does it feel like I'm going to break it. It features two red LED cut-out slots under the palm rest that really light the place up, if you're into that sort of thing. The two click buttons run the full length of the mouse, and are very sensitive. My first run of Half Life 2 was full of miss-fires and accidental discharges from just holding the mouse, let alone clicking it.
As for the software that comes with this beast, Microsoft's IntelliPoint software is pretty spot on, it allows almost all possible buttons and or combinations to be programed to just a thumb click. Did I mention it allows macros? Yes, it does, and you can even time the delay between programed key presses. The only thing that struck me as odd was the lack of programming the space key to a button.
Over all this mouse is great as gaming mouse, but with a price tag over fifty dollars I can't honestly recommend it, there are far better deals out there. If you're looking for a giant mouse, that's extremely responsive, light weight, with a bucket load of options and have cash to burn then this might be the mouse for you.