Kinda spoilers below, but not really unless you are so hardcore about spoilers that you haven't even watched any trailers... (Actually, there's not even any plot below, and a LOT less than the trailers ever exposed.)
I just want to jump in here with my early review of Modern Warfare 2 and say that this game is not even worth the SP if you're looking for an expansion on the first game. After playing though it for about 5 hours and beating it, I was left thinking "Are you shitting me? This is it?"
I do have to say that the action and combat is beyond any other game I've played, with more shocking and unexpected happenings than any game I've seen before. They really deviated from the norm and did certain things which leave you thinking, "HOLY SHIT! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY DID THAT!" That said, I was extremely disappointed by the lack of any significant story like the first game had.
What I mean by this is, in the first game, you would have an objective such as "Raid the safe house and find Al-Asad," which then clues you in to what will happen next, who you are looking for, and what you are looking for. With MW2, your objective will be something such as "capture person x," and then you will proceed on with the game as a different person in a completely different part of the world doing something completely unrelated, all without even finding out what that person knew.
The game ends nowhere close to what the trailers described or even on any note of progress. After the trailers, I expected that this was a war against Makarov and goal was to track this guy down, unraveling the story, and flushing out everyone he works with. That's not what the game was about. By the end of the game, you are not any closer to ending the war than you were at the end of Modern Warfare 1. In fact, the only time you see him is during the airport scene, and you hear him once more on your radio closer to the end. You just spend time fighting the endless waves of enemies in different locations, but you never make any progress. I expected a game where the story expanded on the attacks happening, just like the first one. In this game, the only explanation behind the attacks is what you get at the very beginning, when Makarov shoots up the airport.
It seems that Infinity Ward realized they made a hit and now they just want to milk the series out for as long as they can. Modern Warfare 2 just spins its wheels in place so they can make a third game and maybe a fourth. The only plot that gets finished by the end of the game is one that lasted two missions. I could say it's like Halo 2, but that game was longer and actually made the Halo series much deeper than we thought. So, instead I'll say this game is like Crysis. What made Modern Warfare such a fantastic game, in my opinion, was the perfect mix of a great story (despite being short) and fun gameplay. I LOVED Modern Warfare, and I didn't buy two copies of that game for its multiplayer. This game feels A LOT more like the pre-Modern Warfare Call of Duty series. It's all about "intense, hardcore, realistic" fighting, not about the story.
Graphics, sound, and music were great. However, I don't count that as a selling point of a game. You could argue graphics sell a game, but frankly, there's more important stuff than that. If you want my opinion, they are basically on par with Modern Warfare.
Because the PC multiplayer is butchered and the game lacks a story, I'm going to say this absolutely did not live up to the first game. On the PC side, unless the multiplayer can pan out to be insane (which is doubtful with the lack of dedicated servers), my rating for this game is a 3/10 (even that is being generous, kept up only by some awesome fight scenes). Although that rating is based on singleplayer only, I'll say that with MP, it could probably go up to a 5 or 6 out of 10. It's still lacking and the removal of dedicated servers didn't help my opinion of this game either.
In general, if you were looking for a thrilling story, the game didn't live up to its hype. I guess if you're into matchmaking multiplayer and you were really looking forward to the sticky grenades and CTF, then this game could be for you. As for me, I'm extremely critical when it comes to stories, and this game didn't deliver.
Originally Posted by jcap
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