Infinity Ward's foray and VERY brief experimental phase ends up with a competent fps multiplayer and a just barely meets average campaign that to be fair holds a sweet surprise in its anti-imperialism sentiment.

For the campaign, you have stop and pop shooting done ad nauseam, but with decent setpieces and some cinematic wonders like the mission All Ghillied Up. I found the campaign to still be more of a monotonous grind but credit where it's due the writers snuck in some gold with the nuclear bomb, fiercely pinning down the Bush presidency's major foreign policy.

The multiplayer is good, but it's more like good in spite of a plethora of disgusting design elements. For one, killstreaks was never an interesting mechanic, it rewards snowballing and gives no counterplay for the enemy team. Awful trash that has spawned even worse incarnations later. That being said, the map design is top notch and there's incredible care into the perk and weapon system. It overall ends in a fps multiplayer that while has an almost too high TTK, still holds elements of strategy and interesting engagement.

Overall, COD4 is a middling affair, but it's certainly aged better than most of the other games in its series have.