>>1
Mightiest?
That must be why Microsoft has deprecated XNA and made .NET a second class citizen in Windows 8. They've replaced .NET with WinRT, a native COM based ABI and API, and Metro is built on top of it. C++ is again the champion language, and DirectX 11.1 is making its release.
There are no managed extensions for DX 11.x in sight, and .NET was scaled back for WinRT interop.
You might think I'm joking or trolling, but I'm not. It's over, C#/VB and .NET are finished.