When pausing an XNA Xbox game and showing a “pause menu”, which controller buttons should I use?

Question

I'm making a simple 2D XNA game for Xbox 360. My game can be paused by pressing the Start button on the Xbox controller. While paused, a simple menu pops up with options like Resume and Exit to Title Screen. The way I've currently programmed it, the menu options can only be selected with the A button on the Xbox controller, but I've found that I intuitively want to press Start to resume the action again.

I think it's a given that Start pauses the game and displays the pause menu, but once the pause menu is displayed, I can think of 3 options for dealing with input:

• Menu options can be selected with the A button. Start does nothing.

• Menu options can be selected with the A button or the Start button.

• Menu options can be selected with the A button. Start resumes gameplay regardless of which menu option is selected.

What's the best control scheme to pause a game and accept input on a pause screen menu? Are there any guidelines or standards to help choose between these options?

Answer 1

As a gamer, I appreciate it when games use the following conventions:

• I press Start to pause the game.
• Unless it has some special function (like bringing up a secondary menu), I want the B button to unpause the game.
• Same goes for Start button.
• I want to move the selection with either the left thumbstick or the D-pad, and I want the selection to wrap. ie: If I am at the top of the list and press up, then it should go to the bottom.
• 'A' button selects menu items.

Also, slightly unrelated, but when the game is paused, keep a timer and if there's no user input after 3-5 seconds or something please fade down the music and other continuously playing sound effects.

Update

Adding Trevor's comment in the answer because it's important:

An extra often-forgotten point: Any current controller vibration should be stopped as soon as the pause screen is opened. The vibration should NOT be resumed when leaving the pause screen.