I haven't unlocked dead silence yet but I can hear a little bit.  Not anywhere near to black ops with ninja pro on but I'm gonna get sit rep pro and dead silence and see.

Have you done your ear clearing lately? The steps are so obvious when you use the dead silence perk that you can easily identify which direction they are going or coming from.

My reaction when I was in lower ranks was the steps or sounds are too loud coz I was killed a number of times by players who were guided by hearing my steps.

Plus a good headset really helps a lot, especially the high end turtle beach headsets.

maybe your hearing is just deteriorating over time lol.  Everyday for 3 years.  Plus X31s aren't exactly top of the line.

No.  Just, no.  I have a premium surround sound system.  I can hear the last two footsteps of people approaching me and that's it.  They come out of my front speakers even if the person is behind me.  I can put on my highest-of-the-high-end Turtle Beaches on.  Same thing.  I thought Black Ops' audio was bad...  Actually, it is.  This is equally bad, if not worse though.