Let me first start out by saying that I am in no way an official spokesman for the PC-community or our nice European Fighters clan, the opinion expressed below is my own.
I tried my best to write a review as complete as I could going over as much aspects of the game as I could cover.
If you do not agree with me that's fine with me, everybody is entitled to their own opinion

Also, apoligies for the wall of text that is about to hit you, but like I said, I tried to cover as much as I could.



Having played the Spec ops mode I think I'm ready to give my review, apoligies in advance for any misspelled words

Single player
The single player of MW2 is good, but not the best single player I've ever played.
It's a fast paced action shooter like we're used of call of duty, but this time I couldn't help but feel a little lost in all the action. In my opinion there was too much going on everywhere (especially in the rangers side of the story) to really get a good idea what you're doing and why you're doing it.

The storyline for me contained alot of holes in it. Some of the plotchanges really had me scratching my head with the thought "WTF is going on here? Why is this happening, why did that character do that, where does this fit into the story, ..."
It also did not have the memorable moments like the first modern warfare. I know for sure that in a couple of months I'll have forgotten all about it and there won't be any levels I'll want to play again (like the sniper mission and mile high club in MW1)

The single player is also really really short. I think I completed the entire thing in about 4 - 4.5 hours.

Overal I would rate the single player part of modern warfare 2 as a 6.5/10,
It's ok but far from great.


Spec Ops
For those of you who liked the zombies in Cod5: World at war, this will be for you.
Spec ops features a whole array of levels from the single player and other various missions.
I have only played this for about half an hour but I have to say it was pretty cool.
A sniper mission for 2 players, racing with snowmobiles, ...
The best mission I've played so far is where one of the 2 players is in an AC130 gunship escorting your teammate on the ground. This part was lots of fun but there is one small issue I've had with it so far:
No text chat ingame. Some of these mission depend on heavy teamwork to be able to succeed and not everybody has a headset with good microphone and has a teamspeak/ventrillo server they can use. (Me and my friend used steams call function and the quality was very bad compared to TS/Ventrillo)

Overal this part of the game has suprised me and I look forward to playing more Spec ops missions in the future.
Score: 8/10


And now for the part you've all been waiting for...
MultiPlayer
Lets start off by saying that I was very sceptical at MW2 because of the whole no dedicated servers issue.
I wasn't even planning on buying the game after this news but after seeing Jan play it and then see everybody on xfire starting to play it I decided to buy it anyway (only 45? at Mediamarkt).

Lets start off with the most important thing:
IWNET
A matchmaking system like it is very common on consoles. It is connected with steam and you can invite your steamfriends into a party to play together.
This system however is far from perfect, it has happened many times that for no reason people get kicked out of the party, the invite function in steam is not working properly.
Joining a game as a party is also not as easy as it seems. Sometimes it works really fast, other times you can wait up to 5 minutes or more untill you're actually playing.

IWNET is also lacking in custumisation options, lets say for instance you really want to play Highrise (new map). Your only option as a solo player if you want to play ranked to level up is to click on find game and hope it's Highrise. If it's not highrise you have to leave the lobby and try again.
Same goes for party unless you create a private match, then you do have control what map & gametype you pick. Unfortunatly private servers are not ranked so you can forget about leveling up.
Another problem is the size of the party, as soon as you have more than 6 players in your party you can only select 1 gametype: Ground War. This is basicly team deathmatch and domination but with a maximum of 18 players (where other gametypes are mostly limited on 12 players). This mode however is non hardcore, so not much fun for people like me who prefer hardcore.

The "server" or "host" or whatever you want to call it is automaticly selected by IWNET, appearantly to give the fastest connection for everybody and places everybody of the same "skill level" together.
This however is in my opinion a hit & miss situation. Sometimes you can have a good game, other times a terribly laggy one. The online experience totally depends on whatever internet connection the host is on.
The host will always have a small advantage.
The hit detection (if your shots get registered or not) is also not that good because of the lag issues this game has sometimes.

Host migration seriously annoys me, nothing that gets you out of gaming mode like the game pausing for 15-20 seconds while a new host is being selected.

Modern Warfare 2 is also seriously lacking an autobalance function. It has happened many times that teams start for example 6 vs 6, some people of the same team leave and the game never balances teams anymore. Leaving you stuck in a 6 vs 3 (for example) game.
The only time the game ever balances teams is just before a game is about to begin.
Appearantly it is also impossible to change teams (the function is there but for me it is always grayed out and I cannot use it WTF?).

The maps are not exactly my cup of tea, but I guess I could get used to them.

The lack of a lean function is annoying the crap out of me, playing this game has made me realise how much I use that function in COD4. Exposing your entire body to take a shot is not cool. (also the lean function is still in the game

Overal this game has shitloads of potential, but it fails to deliver on the multiplayer side.
It could be alot better if they would patch in features pc users have been used to for as long as i can remember, dedicated servers are an absolute must, a console to change certain settings is very cool, lean is something i can hardly live without in an online tactical shooter, mod tools and custom maps are awesome, lag is bad, ...

Despite all the flaws the multiplayer side has (and trust me, I didn't mention everything I think is wrong with the MP aspect imo) I would still rate the multiplayer as 5.5/10.

This may be a low rating but keep in mind I am comparing this to the previous modern warfare.
Without private servers to build a comunity around, it will be hard for a clan to recruit members.
Competative gaming is also a thing from the past since one player (the host) will always have an advantage. The lack of a record feature, ready up feature, competative mods, ... will make clanwars / ladders a thing of the past.
In the state it is in I do not see the multiplayer part of the game being entertaining for 2 years + like modern warfare 1, in fact I see it dying in about 6 months max.

If they ever patch the game with the features I want (and i know i'm not alone on this) then i will have no objections to taking back everything I said and make a new review of it.



I would like to end this review with a quote from another review I read on NYDailynews.com which sums up exactly what my personal feel of the game is:

Like many children of influential and respected parents, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" is a spoiled brat that adds very little to the family legacy.

can you also send me the shorter version ?

Only if I lower my IQ by 50 points...

I've stopped doing drugs years ago but maybe if you tie me up and inject me with all sorts of drugs I will be able to give you the shorter version.