I'll start off with Campaign mode is moderately interesting. The real game is online, be prepared to play a few hours a day online because this game is crack! The new & improved perks are very fun as well.

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Far and away better than the first Modern Warfare. This game pushes the limits and increases everything to 11.

Personally the most fun will be in Spec Ops. Grab a friend and go through Hell together.

Online is so dense. They added so much and it will be fun to play though.

Excellent, if short, single player too.

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although the single player campaign is short, the multiplayer is where you are going to spend 99% of you time playing this game, and it sure makes it worth buying it!

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Easily the more well rounded game of 2009. Intense single player campaign that keeps you at the edge of your seat. I found myself wanting to yell out, "this is so awsome" really loud at many different parts of the game. Once you finish that, a multiplayer system that will keep you coming back for more. Some say the hardened edition isn't worth the money, considering all you get is a nicer tin box, a concept art book, and a code for the original COD... but amazon had this for cheaper than the regular edition, so.. it was worth it to me. I have all 3 copies of the game: regular which is my preordered copy the day it came out, hardened edition which amazon had for cheaper than the regular so I couldn't resist buying, and a sealed copy of the prestige edition with the nightvision goggles just to keep as a collectors item. Thats just how great this game is.

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Great game better than the original. The new perks and options to customize are superb. The single player campaign is also great fun.

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one of the best game i'd ever played.. mission was really short.. on my 1st try it took me 7hrs to finish in regular difficulty on my 2nd try I finish the game in less than 6hrs. love the multiplayer game been playing it everyday i already logged 5-6days of playing time for the multiplayer. a must game for all FPS fan!

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Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 makes a lot of great advances in both the shooter genre and Call of Duty franchise, but at the same time loses a bit of what made Call of Duty, well, Call of Duty. It is a great game, and a great Call of Duty game, but doesn't feel like it stepped forward in all the ways one could hope from what previous games have done.

The first Modern Warfare game was unquestionably a blockbuster smash hit, with record sales for the time and really bringing the Call of Duty series into the limelight of shooters along side games such as Halo. It was a vast improvement from the previous installation(CoD 3), much like CoD 2 had done after the birth of series in the first Call of Duty game. With a history of leaping advances in the series both technically and artistically Infinity Ward has not only set a high standard in terms of the game made, but also the game expected next. Modern Warfare 2, while an amazing game that does make strides forward, loses a bit of its soul in the process and falls slightly short of what one could expect.

Once one jumps into the game the technical improvements will be immediately visible. The game has great sound, and the visuals are some of the best I've ever seen. The game is full of awe-inspiring moments during the fighting where I would stop to take in the beauty, my favorite of which came during the battle for D.C. The re-recorded gun effects sound great, and the voice acting is top notch as always with many returning actors from before. And is it just me or does Ghost sound and act exactly like Gaz?

The biggest complaint on the technical side of the game has been the length of the campaign, which I will admit is rather short, though it took me quite a bit longer than most people have said. Thanks to the in game stats clock I could see the campaign clocked in at around 8 hours for me, but then again I am a notoriously slow gamer. While 8 hours is short, and the length of games in general has been getting shorter than I feel is acceptable, the addition of the Spec Ops missions vastly increases the length of the single player experience. While Spec Ops doesn't fit in with the main story line, they are a set of 23 seperate missions which can be played solo for the most part or in co-op. The best way to describe them is to compare them with the Mile High mission at the end of MW1. It wasn't part of the main story, but was rather a side mission that was detached. They are rather fun missions, and with their addition, the single player campaign component of the game should move up to 12-16 hours, which is still short compared to many other games, but does clock in at longer than the average big name shooter that seems to come out these days.

The multi-player is the real winner in terms of length. With an addictive leveling system and new game types one could easily spend months playing MW2 multiplayer alone. The multiplayer offers a chaotic, fast paced experience which feels much like a meat grinder. Though I spent quite a bit of time dying, it never got to me since I was always right back into the action after a brief spawn time and back to killing. The part that will probably suck you in the most is the constant immediate gratification as there is always one more challenge to accomplishment, another level to reach, another game mode or weapon to unlock. The feeling of constant progress through the unlockables worked well in the previous two Call of Duty games, and with the addition of titles and badges there is an even greater amount of content to unlock.

While the game made serious progress on the technical side, I feel like it lost some of what made Call of Duty Call of Duty to begin with. The game is almost as dark and brooding as World at War, which in my opinion is a good thing. Unfortunately the writers took it a bit far as Captain Price will go off on poetic tangents during briefings that seem so far off from the man who before was screaming to get back on your feet whenever you fell. The plot also suffers from becoming complicated, or disjointed. I'm not sure which yet. At certain points in the game characters will do things, big things, plot changing things, for what seems like absolutely no reason and isn't ever explained that well. Call of Duty games have always been rather thin on plot: there is an enemy, we're going to go kill the enemy. It works. That's what the game is based around. Rushing head long into the waiting arms of death. MW2 breaks away from that formula to give a plot full of betrayal and twists which just don't work. Ernest Hemmingway once said "kill your darlings" in reference to story telling, which meant to take out the things you find to be genius and full of subtetly because more often than not it's so subtle only you understand it because you told the story. The game is full of "darlings" that I'm sure sounded great to those who had the why explained to them, but forgot about the rest of the world. The last comment I'll make on the heart and soul of the game is that it also gave up too much on one of its key game components: the headlong rush into death. I can appreciate the games focus on Task Force 141, a special operations unit that operates independently, but the previous games have been about one man in an army, a rush of soldiers pressing forward. In MW2 you'll more often than not find yourself in a small unit of men, or sometimes simply alone for long periods, which just doesn't feel right.

For all its faults I will say this about Modern Warfare 2, it is an amazing game. If it were a new intellectual property I would have been blown away by the game. But it wasn't, and with a history to follow Modern Warfare 2 isn't all that it could have been. It is still a great Call of Duty game, and an incredible game that stands head and shoulders above most shooters you'll find out there. At the same time, the Call of Duty series lost a bit of its soul since the last installment. It has all the moves, it can walk the walk, it can talk the talk, but it just don't have that funk.

For those people who've managed to make it this far in life without playing a Call of Duty game I'd say go right ahead and pick up the game. You'll find an incredible single player exprience packed with action and an addictive multiplayer to give you your money's worth. If you're like myself, a twenty something that grew up the series, I'd still say go out and pick up the game. It's Call of Duty, and it's still amazing. It is by no means a step down, it just didn't advance as far as we've seen in some of the previous installments.

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I have played all three levels, and have almost completed veteran,WOW!!! This game takes your breath away. I love games like this. A pure stroke of genius for the creators of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Hardened Edition. What will you think of next, because when you do, I pray I will be there. Thanks again for this wonderful game.

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great game for the money. slightly better then the 4th one. could still be better

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The game is great. I had no issues with anything from ordering to delivery to game play.

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Just picked up my Xbox 360 Elite 2 weeks ago, and I got this with it. I know my previous reviews haven't been that helpful, so I'll do my best to make this a good one.

IN THE HARDENED EDITION BOX:

-Modern Warfare 2 game in beautiful steel case

-"Behind the Lines": The Art of MW2 artbook

-Call of Duty Classic (aka Call of Duty 1) download code

The game comes in a beautiful steel case, or mostly steel anyway. Some of it is plastic, (the interior and side) but no big deal. Its a great looking case with a soldier in the front and the damaged White House on the back. The art book is very interesting, with a few captions from Infinity Ward about the making of the game. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the artbook, but all you need to know is that the illustrations are fantastic and the captions definetely add to the greatness of it. IW even shares some things they were considering adding to the game that didn't get in, such as a motorcycle chase. (Which in my opinion DEFINETELY should have been in the game.)CoD Classic is great, although it's my bro who plays it the most, since I'm so busy with MW2, which he's not allowed to play. I think it's pretty awesome that IW included a free full game download code for only 10-20 dollars more, and a great second game as well.

THE CAMPAIGN

Pros:

+Great and epic ending

+Veteran is still that insanely difficult and unfair challenge that is oh so satisfying to complete

+Many new and well developed characters

+Interesting betrayal twist that CoD 4 did not have

Cons:

-Very short

-Makarov just doesn't seem like a very good baddy

-No satisfying sniping mission

Needless to say, the CoD 4 campaign was definetely better than MW2's. But I'm not saying it's bad. I have completed it on Veteran, and it is a great single player experience, but the flaws are pretty big ones. It is very short, maybe 2/3 of the length of CoD 4. Also, Makarov looks almost NOTHING like a bad guy. The only 2 traits that made him look bad was his ruffled and crazy hair and creepy voice. On the other hand we have Zakaev, the villian from CoD 4, who looked like one of the most terrifying terrorists I'd ever seen. He had the perfect mean looking face, the perfect, thick slanted eyebrows, and the perfect missing arm that Captain Price blew off all those years ago. Other than the 2 traits I mentioned, Makarov looks like one of your fellow soldiers. Then there is the lack of a good, completely dedicated, stealth head popping sniper mission. There were a few missions that had some sniping twists, but nothing compared to CoD 4's "All Ghillied Up" and "1 Shot 1 Kill" and CoD World at War's "Vendetta". I would have liked the campaign a lot more if they had just added a sniping mission. Now, onto the good things. The ending of MW2 (which I will not be telling you about in terms of what happens) is definetely the most epic ending I have ever seen in ANYTHING!!!! Much better than CoD 4's. Veteran is still that same old Veteran, you choose it, and this is what happens:

This difficulty is not reccommended. Do you wish to continue?

I click "Yes"

Veteran is extremely difficult. Are you sure you want to conitinue?

I click "Yes"

Are you completely sure?

Finally, I click the last "Yes".

Some of these great new characters I mentioned above include Ghost (same voice as Gaz from CoD 4), Sgt Foley, Soap Mactavish, (who was playable in CoD 4, but now you get to hear him talk and see him) Cpl Dunn, and General Sheperd. (I'm almost sure I spelled that wrong, so please correct me in a comment.) Then there's a betrayal that really changes up the game. I will not tell you who betrays you, but after the missions leading up to it you should be able to tell. Before I move on to the multiplayer, I want to quicky address the mission everyone is talking about, "No Russian". I have a very strong opinion of this mission and the controversy surrounding it, but I will not share that in this review. Basically in this mission, you play as new TF 141 member Joseph Allen, who is working for the CIA and takes on an alias that puts him in the shoes of one of Makarov's right hand men to find out more about Makarov's plans. You participate in an act of terrorism on an airport in Moscow, killing civilians. I did not choose to skip this mission, which they give you the option to do in the beginning of the game.) That's all I'll say. If you want to know more, do some research.

MULTIPLAYER

Pros:

+Huge variety and refinement of perks, weapons, attachments, and equiment

+Customizable killstreak rewards

+A prestige leveling system that will take you plenty of time to complete

+Interesting and varied maps

+Interesting challenges to complete

+A TON of modes that are all fun

Cons:

NONE!!!!

It's right up there for you. It would take me years to explain in full sentences why the multiplayer is so good, so I won't do it. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. It's so complicated. All you really need to know is that it's the BEST multiplayer I've ever seen. It definetely makes the game. My only complaint is that the maps are a bit small, but that's a minor flaw. This is hands down the best game of all time. Buy it.

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best game I've played, better than the 1st one. modern warfare 2 is welly made took some time but it was worth waiting for it

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I was really anticipating this game when it arrived on my doorstep. The first Modern Warfare was such a great game and I expected no less from its sequel. I was not disappointed. Though I found the prompt for the "questionable scene" more questionable than the scene itself, the game had no real issues that I could find. There were a fair amount of story elements that you could appreciate more if you played through the first one. Even so, the game stands alone as a great first-person shooter. Multiplayer is the standard Call of Duty type. I don't really have any complaints; it's a great game and I would highly recommend it to those interested in first-person shooters.

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I liked call of duty 4 so I was waitin for this one. This game is absolutley everything I expected it to be it has the most realistic graphics I have ever seen on a an online multiplayer and the story line is phenomenal. I also like the new arsenal they presented: semtex[sticky grenade],throwing knife,riot shield,javelin,stinger,and their whole new arsenal of secondary weapons.

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The multiplayer is so much fun. The single player was good, but i liked the first one more

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