This review contains spoilers
(This'll be mostly my thoughts on the campaign as I did not experience the multiplayer despite the praise I've heard)
Big step up from the previous game in my opinion. Story was improved on scale and intruige; featuring more memorable moments and missions.
The villain(s) are more memorable due to being introduced as a threat earlier via No Russian. Speaking of, said controversial mission is controversial for a reason but it's shock factor done right in my opinion. It's the catalyst for the entire conflict instead of achieving nothing, and it set's in motion Shepherd's upcoming betrayal and Makarov as a force to be reckoned with.
On the topic of Shepard, he's easily my favourite Call of Duty character alongside Reznov. He removes the whole black and white scenario I felt the first game had (America vs Russia) to make the conflict more interesting. His dialogue, motivations, links to the nuke scene from the first game, it all comes together to make a really well fleshed out character. Furthermore, I like how Makarov is used as a red herring which makes his eventual betrayal all the more unexpected (if you did this blind like I didn't).
I did wish Ghost and Soap had more fleshed out moments as Price seems to be the only character on the "good" side that holds my interest. Both the formers are cool dudes but more to them would have made it better.
Lowering the difficulty from hardened to regular was a good decision after playing hardened on the last game. It still felt like a fresh challenge without getting showered with grenades. It shows that I'm not good enough at FPS to do higher difficultly.
The gameplay does suffer from a lot of over the top action (dramatic boat chases, buildings collapsing, etc) which is one thing COD 4: Modern Warfare has over this campaign. I don't mind it in Black Ops 1 and 2 because it's meant to be more fictionalised on top of being spaced out better. However the missions were still fun to complete in addition to the story holding my interest so I'll give it a pass. Here's to hoping Modern Warfare 3 makes me regret bashing this specific aspect.
Big step up from the previous game in my opinion. Story was improved on scale and intruige; featuring more memorable moments and missions.
The villain(s) are more memorable due to being introduced as a threat earlier via No Russian. Speaking of, said controversial mission is controversial for a reason but it's shock factor done right in my opinion. It's the catalyst for the entire conflict instead of achieving nothing, and it set's in motion Shepherd's upcoming betrayal and Makarov as a force to be reckoned with.
On the topic of Shepard, he's easily my favourite Call of Duty character alongside Reznov. He removes the whole black and white scenario I felt the first game had (America vs Russia) to make the conflict more interesting. His dialogue, motivations, links to the nuke scene from the first game, it all comes together to make a really well fleshed out character. Furthermore, I like how Makarov is used as a red herring which makes his eventual betrayal all the more unexpected (if you did this blind like I didn't).
I did wish Ghost and Soap had more fleshed out moments as Price seems to be the only character on the "good" side that holds my interest. Both the formers are cool dudes but more to them would have made it better.
Lowering the difficulty from hardened to regular was a good decision after playing hardened on the last game. It still felt like a fresh challenge without getting showered with grenades. It shows that I'm not good enough at FPS to do higher difficultly.
The gameplay does suffer from a lot of over the top action (dramatic boat chases, buildings collapsing, etc) which is one thing COD 4: Modern Warfare has over this campaign. I don't mind it in Black Ops 1 and 2 because it's meant to be more fictionalised on top of being spaced out better. However the missions were still fun to complete in addition to the story holding my interest so I'll give it a pass. Here's to hoping Modern Warfare 3 makes me regret bashing this specific aspect.