Improved campaing that makes multiplayer suffer
Before I continue with this review I must tell you that I give no game a 10/10 and my favorite games I rate a solid 8/10. Game that are ground breaking or just really unique get a 9/10 and above average (See my Killzone 2 review) get a 6/10, average is just that 5/10. I use the real review scale not some made up 7/10 is pure crap scale. Now on to the review
In a generation dominated by First Person Shooters, Modern Warfare was the “king” of them. I played that game and thought it was rather bleh. It would have given it a 6/10 I played only the campaign because I didn't have Live Gold so I played what I could since it was borrowed. The only parts I enjoyed of that game were the Sniper Missions, the one where you experience the nuclear explosion and the beginning assault on the tanker when it starts sinking. I like those parts of the game in the following order, other than that I thought it was rubbish.
I'll be frank I'm tired of all the FPS's most of them are just rehashes that do nothing new not even plot wise, and then they just focus on trying to be the top multiplayer game. By doing so the single player campaing just falls flat on it's face and the games just tend to suck. Now from my experience COD4 was one of these games, the campaign sucked but from what I gather people love the multiplayer. Now it appears that Infinity Ward decided to put more effort into the campaign and single player experience then their previous game.
The end result is an awesome yet short campaign and a stale unbalanced multiplayer, I wouldn't have it any other way!
Story 8/10
The story in this game is pretty good, just think of it as an action flick. It's not groundbreaking but this game actually did a better story then it's predecessor. The story is a bit hard to follow at times but if you're used to COD then it shouldn't be a problem. Essentially you play as several characters and during one of the guys you played as you commit a terrorist act. The crap hits the fans and this one person was the cause of a war between Russia and the US. Russia is pissed and they attack the US and a crap load of shocking and surprising things happened. I love what they did with the game's story. It's just really awesome. I wish I could tell you more but it would ruin the experience. I give the story a 8/10, it's awesome but suffers from the actual storytelling, since it's hard to follow.
Gameplay 7/10
Now the gameplay is pretty unchanged from its predecessor, I believe they added an auto-aim/snap aiming. When you aim down the sights you automatically lock onto the nearest target so you can shoot instantly. Other then that the game is pretty much the same was before. One of my biggest complaints is that when you see your essential team mates (the ones important to the story) take a hailstorm of bullets they fall to the ground and just dust themselves off and continue to fight which kind of breaks the whole realism of the game. But I do have to praise the AI they are intelligent and very useful. But the single player is really short to the point where I finished the game in one day. So it's about 6 to 8 hours? I rate the gameplay a solid it's a short game but it does its job 7/10
Graphics 6/10
Now the graphics in this game aren't the best I've ever seen, they are just above average. Uncharted and Killzone have this game beat. That isn't necessarily a bad thing one of the best things I like about this game are the smoke effects they are just as good as Killzone 2 and the graphics are colorful not washed out like Killzone 2 or Gears of War. Overall I give the graphics 6/10 nothing to praise but nothing to insult either.
Sound and Music 7/10
The sound in the game are pretty immersive, there is a lot of radio chatter, gunshots, screams, explosions, etc. They all sound good and like they should. Music is kind of meh (you hardly notice it's there) overall it's good but not OMFG BEST THING EVER. I give it a 7/10
Multiplayer 4/10
Now remember how I said they focused on Singleplayer Instead of Multiplayer? Well from what I've read the multiplayer became more unbalanced, and it isn't what it used to be. This is the first time I played this game online and to be honest it's just boring. It boils down to just shooting enemies with little strategy, they are many and I do mean many games with a single player similar to this so you can get your multiplayer fix in any one of these dozen games. If you are a beginner then you are going to suffer, this game awards people who keep playing online with a crap load of weapons and perks and what not. From my experience it just takes time… and a lot of it to unlock everything since you gain Experience points from pretty much everything, it takes little to no skill to get everything and it just serves to segregate new users and just make the game horrible unbalanced, this in turn turns new users away from the online portion of the game. I praise that they have split screen in the game and they have also added co-op missions but overall there is nothing unique about this single player experience and the fact that it just penalizes you for being new just docks it a couple points. I give the multiplayer a 4/10, if you want a game go with something multiplayer oriented like warhawk something else that provides balance and that makes veteran players have access to everything a newbie has.
Replay value 5/10, 8/10
Honestly replay value in this game sucks if it's single player only, it's just average and nothing special just complete missions with a harder difficulty, if you play online then well you have a world of replay value. I rate it a 5/10 single player and 8/10 multiplayer.
Buy or Rent/borrow?
Rent/borrow it, you can get the best part of the game in one day or two if you take your sweet ass time. The multiplayer is dull and below average, I honestly recommend you simply rent it play it and if you enjoy the multiplayer then purchase the game otherwise just play the campaign.
Overall Score 7/10
This game is a testament that games should currently only focus on one aspect, either multiplayer (See Warhawk) or single Player (See Bioshock) when you try to do too much you spread yourself too thin and the final result is the game suffering because something didn't or someone didn't do their job. I hope in the future games stick to just one thing and don't try to branch out (see Uncharted 2 Bioshock 2 and Dead Space 2) if it does something good then just keep doing it and don't try to spread out just put all your resources into that one thing and make it better.
