I understand this was designed for the case that sometimes people want to close multiple tabs.
But I have to point out that this can be done in IE9 as well and the way we do it in IE9 makes much more sense.
Here is my explaination:
1. With the new design in IE10, we can only close multiple tabs when ALL the tabs that we want to close are together, AND at the end. By this way, if I click on the X on the very last tab, the former's X will come to my mouse so I can click again to close that one. But in both IE9 and IE10 design, we can do this by another way. I can just move my mouse to the X on the first tab that I want to close, and when I click once, the X on the next tab will come to my mouse. And this method does NOT require that ALL THE TABS THAT I WANT TO CLOSE ARE AT THE VERY END, it only requires that all of them are together, which is also required by the new design in IE10. So this method can be used more widely.
2. I do not mind if IE10 provides another way of doing something that can also be done in earlier version. But I do mind if it do so by not allowing me to do something that can be done in IE9. When I was using IE9, if I want to close the very last tab and open a new tab immediately, I can just click three times on the X on the last tab. The first click would close the tab and the rest two will be seen as double click on the tab bar by the computer. And double clicking on the tab bar can open a new tab for me. This is really efficient if I want to do so. But in IE10, when I close the last tab, I have to move my mouse right to click on the "open tab" button or move even further then double click.
I can understand that maybe this method is just a personal discover of using IE and it should not be concerned by anyone. But the purpose of the "anyone" cancel this method is just to add another way to realize something that can already be done by another method both in IE9 and IE10 designs, and it can be done better by that method. So it is really not a very good design.
And sorry for my bad English.