For movies they're not better than a surround setup, but for games, trust me, they are untouchable.
When this comes from a hardcore ( used to be at least :p ) gamer who owns quite a few high end audio equipment and has tried everything during his gaming time, from cheap 5.1 to 6.1 and 7.1 PC speaker sets, to very high end hi-fi / home cinema speakers/amplifiers/pre-amps/subs, and cheap to ridiculously expensive headphones, I do believe it counts a lot
If your sound card is a X-Fi powered card ( Creative X-Fi series except the "Xtreme Audio" or Auzentech X-Fi based card ) or even a "software" Creative layer card ( Asus Xtreme-Fi @ high end mobos with EAX 5 HD & CMSS software ), setup your game correctly ( 7.1 ) and your sound card to game mode, headphones output, and CMSS 3D enabled and try some decent sound fps ( counter-strike ain't one of those :p even BFBC2 is more precise, heck, even Rainbow Six 3: RavenShield is much much better in that aspect ) and see for yourself how you can pinpoint everything that occurs in your mp game
For your scare tactics issues, lock the door :p