Review:
If you love Call of Duty, then this is your game. If you have already bought Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, you shouldn't even be reading this. I have always been on the fence. After CoD 2, the single player of every game that followed, even CoD 4, was just a light gun game. You are continually led on rails to every checkpoint by bullet hose spraying enemies. There is no actual squad or enemy AI to speak of, they all just fire blindly and never reload. I know there are a few people who still play these games for the story mode, but I don't. I'm not going to go on too long because these things come out every year so there's not much new to explain.

Spec Ops is greatly improved and includes ranking and perks this time around which, as far as these modes go, is a HUGE improvement on the zombies and horde stuff from WaW and Black Ops. I like it so far, but as with all of these side mission/survival deals, I usually get tired of them after a week. Good improvement, but not a game changer.

Well on the good side for multiplayer, there are a lot of maps. On the bad side, the guns have had a serious working over. More than ever before the weapons shoot like frickin lasers. Nothing sways and you die much much faster than even in MW2. I'm pretty amazed they bothered to include a weapon power up to kill the weapon sway. What sway?!? Overall, the game really feels a lot more like the way Black Ops played than that intangible "Feel" of the Modern Warfare games. Black Ops was the best selling game of all time, or something like that, so I doubt many will complain, but I feel a difference. The theater mode does return, but there are no wager matches, which is kinda weak, but Kill Confirmed is good. The kill streaks have been warmed over with strike package streaks that differ on classes. This is welcome as some classes you can continue to rack up your points in objective based achievements instead of just kills, but lets be honest, people play this game for klilstreaks and I haven't seen any differences yet in how people approach their play styles here. It's kill or be killed as it has always been.

Oh well, I'm just looking over this thing after a few hours, and its just the same fun you always look for in CoD, but I'm sensing there isn't much left in this tube of tooth paste from here on out. They are still relying on the stupid P2P host networking which means lag and ended games still crop up. You still can hide in a tin building during an airstrike and live to tell the tale. You still have massively overpowered guns that all feel the same. And yes, you still can have fun with all these things deep into a Saturday night. I'm just wondering what they are going to do next. Unless they come up with something new, I don't see myself buying another one of these next year. Heck, I still play MW2 a few times a week. You aren't missing a whole lot if you pass on this, but if you're a fan, you'll enjoy it.

To be fair, I fired up the single player and I just made a few notes Infinity Ward missed. -- You can play through most of what I have without firing a bullet. You just run to the checkpoints and duck. Sooner or later the enemy there will get shot and you move on. -- Sandman is the worst Delta Force short gunner in history, he can't hit the broadside of a barn. -- Also, Sandman is wearing reflective eye protection - big no no in the Army. Eye protection should be clear or non reflective ***READ Reply from T.A. Frank in the comments on the eyewear. Best info you'll find *** A real veteran could clear this up if I am wrong. -- The Multiplayer is fun, but the "Lost host connection" hasn't gone anywhere. I'm enjoying , but just like any other heavily marketed product, just play it for what it is, don't expect this game to do your laundry for you.

Conclusion: After going between MW2 and MW3, I can say a lot of the quick death and lag issues come down to the fact that MW3 is simply set to play much faster. Back to back, you can just tell by running and toggling iron sights - in addition to the new avatar stances, the animations really are quicker. I think Black Ops was also faster than MW2. Unless you happen to be host, some games you are going to have a bad day. I'm on 10 meg and watching kill cams and the Vault videos, about half the time, the delay I see from my character is not what I actually experienced. Other times I get what seems like an endless supply of hit markers and no kill. I've even killed people I'm not aiming at. I'm not really sure if it is connection related or the networking part of the game is simply unable to keep the sync up accurately.