My Site Design - Need some opinions and Add Placement Ideas

Hey, I'm starting a new layout for my site, same design, different feel, plus about 2,000+ more pages when it goes live ..here is what I have so far, the top 2 Tab sets are almost complete, bottom 2 havent started, I need some ideas on Ad Placement, and any other Critiques you may have, Thanks !

http://www.hdnews.info/newsite

 

Still looking for ideas!

 

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23

 

Sorry ..didn't know that existed, I'll try to move, or maybe a mod can for me.

Thanks.

 

The text in the top right corner is overlapping with the release date (in ff2 at least).
As to ads, there are 3 possible locations i think, under the menu on the left (vertical), under the Featured Slideshow (horizontal) and if you move the xbox section down and to the left so it is under the HD News - Headline News, a square one could go there. 5 news sections would help out the balance of the added square ad so it would have 2 columns of 3 squares.
You will need to play around and see which combinations look the best.

 

You need to make more use of space in there. It all looks like one big cluster of letters, lol.

 

The gradient on the bg titles in the menu bar are quite ugly make them more smooth and subtle.

The same goes for the site bg, make the transition more subtle!

 

Great, thanks for all the comments guys (+rep) , I'm going to try and implement some of these tonight or tommarow.

 

Put the ads right around the content, and make the text color white. I like your design!

 

Thanks guys, still working on it.. tabs and slideshow starting way below where its sapose to now, need to fix that, I'll keep updated ..I started implementing some of the ideas.