Spec Ops is really a game driven by the plot, the gameplay nowdays is pretty outdated and it has some glitches. It was removed from steam for some reason but the idea of the game is really the story.

Gameplay
in rest the gameplay does not get repetitive because it take 5 hours to beat the game not more than that depending on what difficulty you are gonna choose.
The year himself 2012 was the peak of smaller games that innovated something that a AAA game can't sadly, well if we speak about the recent events of helldivers then yes, smaller devs are always better and creative than huge game companies and this game with the rest of thousand proves that point really good, spec ops is only about the story not the gameplay even though it looks very good for UE3.
One thing to point out, the major problem with the audio speakers for modern headphones, yes it always happens to 2009-2014 games where the audio cuts off for no reason, its like the third time happening from an action game and it only happened to these third person action games like tomb raider (2013) and batman arkham asylum.

Story
Here's the most important part of the game and why this review is checked as a spoiler, everything that happens in the game after the helicopter intro is a huge hallucination, dubai has gone wrong and captain martin walker was sent with his mates to stop and save innocent lives and evacuate the city, while there the main antagonist is john konrad and the former commander of 33st infantry, the second antagonist is robert darden who is a radioman taunting walker's team, the three soldiers are surrounded by terrorists in dubai while trying to rescue innocents but one segment in the game changes everything, the mortar scene where walker thinks he kills the opps he actually killed innocent lives, that changed the game and made the 33rd infantry aganist them for killing his own men, adams and lugo are arguing because of this but they know that they cannot stop there and have to push to find john konrad. In the game you find an old soldier by the name of riggs, you help him by stealing 20 gallons of water but failing and him dying shot by walker. Later on you have to reach the radio tower where you meet the radioman, your goal is to reach other soldiers to send help to evacuate the city and leave but robert darden gets shot by lugo, failing that the crew gets in a helicopter and the segment of the intro begins, choppers everywhere and getting down and so walker's men are alone, the captain is still alive and finds adams but unfortunately lugo was killed and hanged. They know that they have to push one more time aganist the 33rd army and reach the tower but walker and adams are being surrounded and he gives up but he starts to feel weird again and runs away without a gun to the tower where he met john konrad, apparently he was dead for decades and all of the events where in walker's mind, as a final scene they take 2 pistols and point at each other in the tower and someone gotta shot first, i shot him after that the epilogue begins, walker is calling to evacuate so the us army comes to rescue him but in the end the former captain kills them and the game ends after the epilogue with 15 chapters.
Everything was a setup in his mind, the delta force formed with walker,adam and lugo was sent after the 33rd failed in dubai and john konrad died there as well, walker's main objective to find konrad and rescue the people of dubai was in his mind all the time, his delta team possibly died and he imagined all of this scenario in his head with thousands of innocents dying.
Truly a game to challange the player's morality.