Above: The Heartbeat Sensor, made by Satan himself. Expect to see it in your killcam a lot.

You'd think that, given my previous 10/10 award for the game, this review would write itself, right? Wrong. Quite simply, multiplayer is not up to the standard of the rest of the game, which is a crushing disappointment. Not only that, but I'm also considering lowering my original score for the main game as I have come to notice more and more flaws.

    Where to begin? I think we shall address the most prominent flaw first, which would appear to be the players themselves. Objective based game modes may as well not exist, as players rarely actually try and do what they are supposed to, preferring instead to rack up kills, usually by camping. Camping, it would seem, is unlikely to go out of fashion anytime soon. Matches are frequently dull or irritating, with people flat out refusing to budge from their respective corners. Granted, it doesn't happen every match, but still far more than it should. The campers seem to be actively aided by the game, exploiting attachments such as the heartbeat sensor, which shows enemies in close range up as a red dot on the sensor, which is attached to your gun.  It's is used by 90% of campers, and never ceases to infuriate, beyond the fact that it has no place in a game about 'modern' warfare. 

    Attachments are poorly thought out and easy to exploit. The grenade launcher makes an unwelcome return, yet it no longer replaces perk 1. And furthermore, you can also have a grenade launcher with a two grenade capacity as your secondary weapon. They also decided to introduce a perk by the name of Scavenger, that restocks your ammunition as you run over corpses... Including your grenades. So, you can start with five grenades (including the traditional hand thrown frags), and then restock them when used. Or just use One Man Army, and switch to an identical class with a small delay, ready for use all over again? Something tells me this was not thought through.

    The thermal scope is (arguably) cheap and out of place, the multitude of optical sights are seemingly there for novelty purpose (In my two and a half days of play time, I have seen only one user with the Mars sight), and it is a similar story with the underslung shotgun, or Masterkey. This in itself is also poorly thought out, as the delay it takes to activate the gun by pressing a directional button severely hampers its usefulness, when a quick control modification (such as having it replace special grenades, and having the related button fire the shotgun) would have made them far more tactically applicable. The Akimbo attachment (allowing the use of two weapons at once) is interesting but once more, poorly implemented. Sure, it could be useful with sub machineguns, but dual wielding barely affects recoil, and the fact that you can dual wield certain shotguns (yet, inexplicably, not others) is beyond ridiculous. Especially when you consider that you can dual wield the shotgun known as the '1887', which is quite overpowered despite having apparently been nerfed. (It wasn't, not noticeably so.). Other weapons seem balanced in the damage they deal (only), but inconsistent.

    Bullet damage seems wildly inconsistent. Is it lag? Perhaps, but it only seems to happen in the Call of Duty series. For example, the FAL, by it's base stat, is a two hit kill at close range, and three at long. This is held consistently in offline MP and I scarcely see otherwise. Yet, online, I can shoot someone four, five times with it at close range, and they will survive, turn around and kill me with but one shot to the shin. Why would an AR take four shots to kill offline, and a full clip online? Lag? Perhaps, but I still get a hit marker, and it's consistently variable despite me having a decent connection.
   

The weapons themselves are frankly ridiculous, and are horribly balanced. For example, handguns have more recoil than some light machine guns when fitted with a grip, and the weapons never reflect their given statistics. 1887's can kill with one shot at long range (and be dual wielded) and yet other shotguns will take multiple shots and have practically no effective range. Some secondary weapons are essentially useless (The TMP, a machine pistol, requires roughly the entire clip for a kill). Nor are the representations of weapons anywhere approaching realistic, with you being able to unload the clip of an anti-material rifle in under a second while firing from the hip. The sniper rifles have been done very badly, generally being underpowered to an unnecessary degree.

    An odd, but noticeable thing that grates on my nerves is the sound effects of the weapons, which sound nothing like the weapons they represent, something that I simply cannot comprehend, and half the time it gives the impression that you're wielding toys. Compare this with the guns in say, Black (a 2006 release for the PS2), and it is simply not understandable. Other aspects of sound are quite impressive though, voice acting is of a good quality, and music is good, when it can be heard over the gunfire. But, it doesn't compare to the rousing orchestral of the single player mode.

    Kill streaks have received an interesting overhaul. Where you once had only UAV, Airstrike and Helicopter, you now have a large repertoire from which to choose. This in itself is a great addition, but it is still replete with flaws. For one, you can't customise your killstreak loadout for individual classes, it must be a global choice which can be problematic on some maps. Chopper gunner is a good example, giving you the seat of a gunner in an attack helicopter. On open plan maps, just one of these can turn the tide of a match, but in dense urban maps they can be practically useless. Having  a universal set limits your options somewhat. 

    However, the most noticeable issue is that the streaks are once more incredibly variable in quality. I've seen a Harrier get four kills in three seconds, yet during an offline match, the target was stood out in the open and completely stationary, and the Harrier couldn't even hit him, choosing instead to shoot around him. The fact that most killstreaks can be destroyed with ease also limits their usefulness, and to cap it off, if the entirety of the enemy team utilise one perk (Cold Blooded), any automated killstreaks are rendered completely useless. Not to mention the fact that some feel gimmicky and yet again badly thought out, such as the EMP, which disables all electronic equipment held by the enemy. Only it doesn't, the fact that everything comes back online quickly renders it a useless streak that isn't justified to require fifteen kills, with it's only noticeable useful effect being destroying enemy streaks (In terms of realism, an EMP blast would destroy anything electrical in the vicinity, not just knock it out, and would do so regardless of allegiance).

    Another example of a stupid streak is the Tactical Nuke. It's sole purpose is to end the game with a victory for your team (which in itself is a ridiculous concept given that you die as well), and causes people to do nothing but camp or worse in attempt to get one, and at a 25 streak it is disproportionate to the kills required for other streaks, at ten higher than the last. I'm also sceptical that care packages (which drop one random kill streak, excluding Emergency Airdrop and Tactical Nuke) are completely random: I once got a grand total of eleven UAV's out of a care package in a row. I also called an Emergency Airdrop (which drops four instead of one) and got three UAV's, and Ammo. All I ever get is UAV, Counter UAV or ammo, and yet my friend seems to consistently get Pavelows, Harriers, even AC130's. I have never had an AC130 from a package. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but with the chance of getting a UAV approximately 14%, what are the chances of getting eleven in a row?

    Matchmaking is still an issue, despite having apparently been 'fixed', according to Infinity Ward. More often than not, I'm booted mid-match as my party continue to play, assuming of course that it lets me join the same match in the first place. Connection issues are apparently rife, with severe lag noticeable despite me having a three bar connection. If it stands at below that, my player may as well be running in treacle as I even have trouble with the simple act of moving forward. The introduction of Host Migration is to be applauded, but again it fails more often than it succeeds. One issue that really stands out is the 'Point of View' glitch, where you might only be able to see the tip of the opponent's head, yet they can both see and aim at you. This has been unaddressed since Modern Warfare, and is very annoying, making it even easier for campers. It really has to be fixed instead of being ignored like it has been, and that is unlikely to happen.

    Another commendable edition is the addition of personalised Callsigns, allowing you to select your own title and emblem. It adds a nice level of customisation (which it needs, given that you can customise your character in most shooters these days) and there are plenty of possible combinations to be used. If you want to unlock all of them, be prepared for some hard work. Many of them can only be unlocked via 'Prestiging', the act of revoking all weapons and challenges etc once you get to the maximum level, and to get them all you must reach tenth prestige. And not by glitching, as many people have. However, reaching each prestige takes unnecessarily long, and there is little incentive to do so beyond getting extra slots for custom classes. It would be a better idea to allow you to retain your weapon challenge status, so that all the hard work you put in for a particular weapon camouflage or attachment hasn't been completely wasted. 

    The most noticeable thing about this game is the graphics. Framerate is hard to evaluate as lag frequently causes choppiness, but the graphics are of a very high quality. A lot of movement in the background has been added, from floating leaves to caged chickens in order to disorient you, and it's a good effect. There is an impressive amount of detail within the levels, and it's one of the strongest points of the multiplayer.  Finally, there are the maps themselves. These can only be evaluated in a matter of personal taste, but most of the maps in MW2 seem to have been designed to favour campers. There are no maps that are ideal for sniping, in my opinion, though it could be argued that somewhere such as Derail fits the bill. Wasteland comes closest, but everybody camps in the one place that isn't out in the open.  No one map stands out as being 'good', whereas in MW I had strong favourites, such as Overgrown, that I would love to see return. Re-releasing old maps seems like a no-brainer, let us hope it happens.

    Ultimately, this has been a very disappointing effort. Infinity Ward have chosen to simply add as much as they can instead of actually fixing what was wrong with the original Modern Warfare, and this cannot be justified. The result is a consistently problematic experience that pales significantly in comparison to the superior single player mode, and one that does not deserve the massive amount of hype it has received. In no way does this game subsequently justify the fact that it had an overpriced recommended retail price. Any structure built upon crumbling foundations will collapse... Let us see what happens with this.

My verdict: 6/10