Help me buy my new gaming monitor

The best possible advice i could give you is to go to an actual shop and take a look around the displays that are on offer. Its all well and good getting advice and recommendations but you have to live with this display day in and day out.
There really is no other way to be sure that the monitor suits you and what you want from it, how it looks on the desk top is a large part of the whole buying process never mind what it can actually do in theory.

I say in theory because there is a lot of, well i will call it massaging of the claimed contrast ratios for one. There is no guarantee that they are even comparing the same thing when stating response times/ratios etc. Some companies report Grey to White to Grey while others report Black to White to Black which is the one you really want to know. The whole dynamic boost and host o fother post processing muddies the water as well.
You can get 2ms response times these days but i feel 5ms is plenty good enough but i wouldnt go higher.

You can always buy online if its easier after you have taken a look around and you never know you may just get a bargain on the high street these days as they are sure to be eager for sales in this climate. Dont feel to bad about getting the sales staff to jump through a few hoops for you giving a demo etc its what they get paid for. Do go in knowing what your talking about though and only buy if you are 100% happy you are getting what you want at a good price.

As a recomendation though as you did specifically ask i would say BenQ or Samsung in a 24" model would be a good starting point although im not going to give you an exact model as there are things like HDMI ports and USB ports which you need to check if they are included or if you in fact want them.

Mactronix