Video game sequels tend to be different from movie sequels in that usually they offer many improvements over the original. In the case of this game this is true. The graphics seem much better, the AI seems smarter and don't resort to simply throwing endless grenades on Veteran difficulty but instead use better tactics (crawling to flank you unseen or tossing a flashbang into your cover and attacking). One complaint I have though is the campaign seems shorter than the previous game, I managed to beat the game in 7.5 hours on Veteran with only a few levels offering me real trouble. The online mode of this game (with the added Special Ops mode) more than makes up for the short campaign. I would recommend the Xbox360 or PS3 versions over the PC for multiplayer as I've heard nothing but bad things about matchmaking and hacking. This game is one that can keep you occupied for years, or at least until the next Modern Warfare game is released.

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I have been waiting since the first Modern Warfare game for this game. Was it worth they wait? I would have to say yes, does it break the Call of Duty mold? Not really. I had both the PS3 and 360 version of the game on hand at launch day, but a poorly timed Red Ring of Death on my 360 meant it was a few days before I could play on my Xbox.

The game plays amazingly well on both system, to the degree that I don't even notice a difference. It almost comes down to which control you like better, or which system your friends are using. Xbox Live is still the standard when it comes to online play, it is easy simple and painless (though not free). It might just be me but it seems that the load times on the 360 are just slightly faster than the PS3. I have had no problems with the online play with either Xbox live or PSN Network.

The fist issue I have is with the difficulty settings, most everyone should be able to enjoy and play through the game on the easiest setting, but from there up the difficulty ramps up for faster than it should The Regular setting on WM2 feel much more like the Veteran setting on MW. This is a hard game for all but the best FPS players. You will die while fighting off wave and waves of bad guys that never stop spawning. That is part of the COD recipe for sure but it makes it particularly frustrating on levels like the Rio slums level. Where you have guys spawning from every direction, none stop and all of whom are master marksman. You will die constantly. I think they could have done better with upping the difficulty a little better at each level. The difference between the easiest setting and the next on up is extreme. The entire game feels more like the plane level on MW on any setting.

The weapon selection for everything but pistols is great. You can't pick you load out but you will come across so many weapons that finding one you like isn't an issue. Many of the weapons are kitted out with optics and whatnot similar to the multiplayer mode in MW. There is also a huge assortment of weapons in the game. Where I find them lacking is in the pistol department, there are plenty of M9s, USPs, G18s and Desert Eagles, but it doesn't come anywhere close to the selection avilable for long arms. As hard as they worked to focus on accuracy I don't know why they felt it fit to are the US Army Rangers with Desert Eagle pistols. Their incorporation of the UAV is very well done but it doesn't take you out of the fight the same way the AC130 level did in the first one.

The story is well told and the voice acting is good. But the story is way out there, more James Bond super villain than modern military action like the first one way. There are plenty of twists and turns in the story but I think they could have done it better. The ending in particular is poor for a military style FPS. While you really felt like a military man or SOF operators in the first on the story for the second doesn't do it quite as well. I wish they would have stuck more with the Tom Clancy style of plausible story than what they came up with. The campaign is also painfully short, even more so than Modern Warfare. To be fair many player will pick up MW2 almost exclusively for the online play, but they showed in Modern Warfare that it was possible to craft an amazing and accurate campaign and muliplayer in one package.

The online play is great and I have had no issues with maps or the network yet. The ladders to unlock weapons and attachment is nothing new to MW vets and is done fairly well. I have issue with the heartbeat sensor, but that might just be me. The Special Forces mode is a good addition for people who prefer to play with their friends against the computer than to play against other players online. Though the SF mission are insanely hard, even on the lowest setting. They also don't have the same 'feel' of the campaign which is good I guess, but it makes it feel more arcade like than COD usually does. People who are prone to throw controllers might want to have some extras on hand for the veteran level setting.

The only thing about this game that disappoints me is the lack of coop campaign play. There is no point in the campaign where you find yourself all alone or where it would be odd to have a human controlled squad mate. I am glad they made the Special Ops mode and it is a lot of fun. But playing through the huge world changing campaign would only be made better if you could live it out with your best buddy online. If they could make it work in COD:WaW I know that they could have been done even better in Modern Warfare 2.

All said Modern Warfare 2 is a great game, good multiplayer, good campaign and well polished controls. Does it live up to the hype surronding the game? I don't think so, its a great game, but I don't think it stood a chance with as much as it was hyped. Is it a great new addition to the COD series? absolutely. Will it the best shooter of 2009, I don't know but it will be hard to beat. It is definietly one of the best shooter of the year, if not one of the betters ones ever made. If you are a COD fan already you've probably already got the game in your console. If you are sitting the fence and your a fan of the FPS you shouldn't miss this game.

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The graphics in this game are awesome. Some of the best I have seen in a game. If you are a big online multiplayer (XBOX Live), they still have some of the same issues as they had before that make it frustrating to play. (ie. respawning near or in front of enemy units, guns that take too many shots at close range to kill, and more.) The campaing is fun. But, I think once I am finished, I'll be back to playing the multiplayer on COD:WAW.

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My two teen-aged boys have been Call of Duty fans for several years now. I was a GRAW2 holdout, until now. I really like CoD: Modern Warefare2. Even if don't have the reflexes of the youngsters playing online, there are still modes of combat where I can have success, which I define as having fun while having a win/loss ration greater than 1. I even get more kills than deaths, usually. Being old-school, I prefer going 5-3-4 to 18-1-24, and being old (56), getting 18 kills ain't gonna happen in a 10-minute game!!!

We all give it 2 Thumbs-Ups!!

Sign me, Colonel [1953]Duck7575

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Most has been said about this game. It speaks for itself as one of the best of all time to date.

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Y en español lo hago!

Este juego es asombroso!

9.5/10

Compra obligada!

Con los ojos cerrados!

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So let me say, having not played Modern Warfare I was very impressed with this game. The campaign was a lot of fun and really got me into what was happening. Also I LOVED the Red Dawn reference which was just brilliant.

Only thing keeping me from giving this game a 5 is very simple. Zombies. CoD WaW set the new standard for online multiplayer with their Nazi Zombies mode and subsequent maps. What CoD MW2 needs is a zombie mode. Taliban Zombie, Russian Zombie, whatever! Anything that we can use the modern warfare weapons to kill zombies would be amazing! In fact the more I think of it the more I am disappointed.

Another slight problem is a co-op campaign mode, the special ops are nice but too short and time based. Actual missions with friends would be far better...which also leads back to zombies. It seems the designers for the game decided that only player competition is fun for people when there must be a large fanbase of people who want to do co-op stuff. Just my opinion.

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I managed to play this game the day it came out thanks to Amazon's Launch-Day Shipping Option (very inexpensive at roughly $5) and immediately proceeded to beat the campaign and continue onto the multiplayer experience. The first Modern Warfare was known for its very dramatic and untraditional storyline and new setting for the Call of Duty franchise and this reputation would prove difficult to uphold. However, Infinity has pulled it off. While the campaign is short at around 5-6 hours, the experience is worth every second. The single player campaign was well-formulated and kept me entertained throughout the whole time. While there was no real "high" point in the experience, I didn't feel any low points either or levels I absolutely detested. The Co-Op aspect of the game, "Spec Ops" proved to provide more gameplay time than the singleplayer campaign itself. You will find yourself trying to beat each mission on the hardest difficulty "Veteran" and formulating strategies of your own to succeed. Most of the missions can be done by yourself but a few require a teammate. The experience was solid and some of the later challenges were some of the most difficult I have taken part in with recent games.

The two aspects of the game mentioned above only account for about 50% of the game, the other 50% being focused on the Multiplayer aspect. The majority of first-day owners of this game went immediately to multiplayer, skipping the campaign and spec-ops entirely. The mutliplayer experience provides a solid experience and proves that MW2 is the true successor to COD4: MW. With already over 4 days logged in on multiplayer I have still yet to get "sick" of it. The amount of customization that one can put into their classes is pretty much endless and the addition of the killstreak rewards reward new and veteran players alike. It's a great game to play with your friends, always trying to trump your friend in your K/D or score ranking and that is one of the key reasons this game will never get old for me. I patiently await the third installation of the Modern Warfare "series" and am unsure how they are going to trump this game.

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great game, nice to be able to get it here cheap and have the artwork and cool case for less money. love amazon for this reason. the only comment about this game is that it would be nice if the campain were longer.

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imo, the multiplayer on CODMW 1 was way better than CODMW 2. The story line is intense and fun. The Spec Ops Coop is a nice touch. This version has a cool art book and COD Classic Download Code.

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Long awaited sequel to the 1st modern warfare

Here's what's good:

1. intense fighting

2. real time action and shooting

3. true to life body movements and tactics

4. awesome graphics and rendering

5. the weapons are all fun..

Here's what sux:

...It's too damn short, the original took me the better part of day to finish this one I finished in less than 5 hours...what a let down!

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This is one of the best first person shooters I have played in a long time!

It has a great story with moments that truly pull at your heart strings. It also has a great multiplayer with plenty of replay value!

If you haven't played this game yet, it is definitely worth looking into.

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For the fans of the series this has been a long awaited game, with that said i firmly believe that in the campaign and in the spec ops it lives up to its name, but the multiplayer is seriously lacking, the player cap and the auto aim takes most of the fun out of the game, alot of customization which is really fun for those who really want control over their load out, but there is a lot of overpowered weapons and kill streak weapons that makes the multiplayer something to shrug at, but on the other hand the campaign and the spec ops is really story driven you really feel part of the experience, I really enjoyed all the spec ops missions also especially when you have a friend to battle with you, it is very tactical, so if you want a game for the story or the challenging missions i recommend this game but if you are seeking a multiplayer experience i strongly suggest you stick to world at war or call of duty 4 for this game is clearly lacking in that area.

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I spent a good portion of my Veterans Day playing Modern Warfare 2 and I must express my disappointment. This game was a huge let down for me and I'm not really a Call of Duty/Modern Warfare fan. I didn't start playing until a year ago, while I was finishing a deployment in Iraq and we were reduced to going to the gym and playing video games (missions were run at the request and support of the local police which means we didn't get out much and I got very good at games I'd never played before).

I'm not sure what it is, I'm not sure why in the end the US military always has to be the bad guys, but its growing increasingly tiresome. There are enough "bad guys" in the world that I don't understand the requirement that we spend the last several levels of a game killing American soldiers.

Maybe I missed something, which is possible given the disjointed nature of the story telling in the game. Maybe I missed the key point, the moment in which suddenly America is so monstrous and horrible that the game designers can justify the transition of fresh faced kids fighting to defend family and country into horrid creatures that not only witness the murder of fellow soldiers, but actively participate it. I'm an American Soldier and I'd like to think that if I just watched my commanding officer whack two SF guys I'd do something about it, rather than dousing their bodies in gasoline so he can torch the remains. I really wonder when such things became PC in western socities.

Yes, the game is that graphic. Which is neither a good thing or a bad thing. If you don't care about the gore factor, then the game is fine. If you can't stand gore, then you've been warned.

So why two stars and not one?

The game is very playable, the graphics are beautiful, and the weapons impressive. You also get to do some pretty "cool stuff", like scaling an ice flow, rocketing down a river in a zodiac, battling through the blasted remains of Washington DC, lowering yourself down a cliff face to take out a patrol with a knife, and last but not least in what is possible the most insanely blood drinking bad*** moves I've seen in a video game you get to pull a knife from your gut and finish off a "boss".

I just hope I'll be half as hardcore in my next deployment.

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Infinity Ward could care less about the PC world of hard-core gaming. They have completely dismissed the PC community in the pursuit of profits. My issues are as follows as it relates to the multiplayer:

- No dedicated servers. I.W. wants you to goto their .net servers that have very little or NO oversight for cheaters and hackers.

- No more than 9 vs. 9 per server.

- Players are placed on servers by rank and score.

- Pay for MAP PACKS.

- Pay for access.

- You are forced to play with bunny-hopp'n, dolphin-flopp'n, running around with their head 'cut-off' type of players.

- No admin to manage the game for people that do not follow the rules.

- No such thing as a mod'd server.

- No custom maps.

Great job Infitiy Ward is completly dismissing the PC community in the pursuit of profits instead of putting out a quality gaming experience for all.

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