sounds like you want the secondary database to be updateable, is that correct? If so replication in a form that allows updateable subscribers is your only option, .

If this is purely for DR I would never use replication, its the most difficult to maintain. I would go for mirroring except where the network connectivity was poor.

If you just want the secondary database to be readable then it comes down to latency, and it sounds like you want mirroring, with maybe log shipping for the low use databases. Failover of these can be scripted and automated. A mirroring failover in particular takes seconds.

If you can I would advise SQL2012 always on for this scenario if updating not needed.