Battlefield 3 doesn't have that many perks and they don't do much. It's different than BF2 - it's more like a hybrid of BF2 and BF:BC2.
BF3 is far, far, far slower paced than CoD - for one, the maps are MASSIVE - it's not really about "twitch" reactions and shooting dudes - players have a lot more health than in MW1/2/3 and kills aren't all that important to score or whether or not you win the match. It's a much slower paced game, with a greater emphasis on particular roles. Team work is MASSIVELY rewarded - you can do well on your own, but an un-co-ordinated side will lose to a even remotely co-ordinated side every single time. You won't get much done by yourself, you need to stick with team-mates. Even snipers can't always play "lone-wolf" style if they want to be very effective in winning the match.
This is a game that rewards careful movement, taking cover, watching and waiting, paying attention to the mini-map, working with others, and extensive knowledge of the terrain. There isn't as much customization as in CoD, but what customization that is on offer can dramatically affect how you play a game. You can end up near the top of the score-board with only a couple of kills, if you gain score by other means such as reviving downed players, letting team-mates spawn on your position, repairing vehicles or even just spotting enemies or capture points or throwing down ammo kits. Every class can buff and support every other class. Medics/Assault Class can deploy med-packs that speed up the health regeneration of near-by team mates. Suppport Class can throw down Ammo packs and lay down very effective suppressing fire (which actually suppresses the enemy by blurring their peripheral vision) and they can plant Claymores and use mortars. Recon class have access to snipers, they can plant sensors to detect enemies and laser vehicles to allow the engineers to deploy more effective/accurate anti-tank rockets. Engineers can repair vehicles, deploy de-mining bots, lay down mines, use rockets to take down land, sea and air vehicles and they can use sub-machine guns. Every role helps every other role. A sniper can be effective - but if his team mate puts down a med-pack next to him, he'll be that much more effective against other snipers. An engineer can be effective aganist vehicles - but he'll run out of rockets quick if a support soldier hasn't given him an ammo pack. Support soldiers are useful against a group of enemies - but if a sniper shoots him in the head, he'll need a Medic to revive him. If you charge at a capture point yourself, you're almost certainly dead meat - the environments are wide open, BIG places set almost exclusively outdoors. You can't watch everywhere, 360 degrees around you, and when you capture a point the enemy will swarm your position and almost certainly kill you. To be effective, you need to spawn with and stick with your squad to take down a capture point. You'll need engineers to fend off the vehicles that will inevitably arrive. You'll need support soldiers to replenish the ammo. You'll need medics to keep the squad alive and healthy and you'll need recon to counter-snipe the snipers. You can pilot a vehicle by yourself - but unless you have a co-player manning the turret, you've got virtually no protection against engineers rocketing your tank from the back and you'll be blown apart literally within seconds of going near an enemy held point.
And that's not even counting the vehicles - the only thing that can damage vehicles that are tougher than a jeep are engineers or other vehicles. A good tank driver, coupled with a good engineer, can devastate, utterly devastate a un-cooperative, un-coordinated team. I've seen four players, all engineers driving two tanks between them, hold an entire point for an entire 30 minute match without dying once. It's quite impressive. Jets and Helicopters are very useful and very fun to use.
BF3 is about wide maps, team-work, multiple points of attack and careful, methodical traversal. It's not like the arcade-like CoD (which is just as fun in its own way), which empathizes fast movement, fast shooting, and tight corridors, in the manner of Quake - this is a game where going slow and actually having someone watch your back and moving from cover point to cover point makes a difference. If you run out in the open straight towards an objective, 10 snipers are gonna kill you before you get anywhere near it.
If you want a slower-paced affair that gives you more roles and playstyles and absolutely gigantic maps, then BF3 is pretty fun.
It's not without its problems, though. Helicopters and Jets, while fun, are difficult to pilot. Vehicle perks give a significant, almost overwhelming advantage to older players as opposed to newer players when it comes to vehicle combat. If you're a new player who hasn't unlocked all the vehicle perks, you will almost certainly get massacred if you try to initiate tank combat against another tank piloted by a levelled up player with the perks. And the maximum amount of fun comes through co-operation. If you're playing on a team which doesn't talk back and doesn't know you and doesn't want to co-operate, it can be immensely frustrating when you go up against a team that does co-operate. There aren't many guns, and the customization options feel pretty weak. The user Interface is awful as well. Oh, and if you are new to the game, you will have a hard time getting used to it. Be prepared to get shot in the back or in the head over and over again without warning until you learn the maps and the access pathways.
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