OK. i played for about 3 hours after I got off of work, and this is what I like. 1.) The maps are more interactive and multi-tiered. You can climb more things, knock shit over, blow more shit up. 2.) I like the way that you can choose which weapons/attachments/perks you want to unlock based on the accumulation of squad tokens or whatever they're called. No longer do you have to play for a week and a half to unlock all the stuff to be a kick ass sniper character, or whatever style you like. You could reasonably do it in a few hours. 3.) I like the idea of the customization in individual squad members. So, not only can you customize each member, but you can customize a bunch of load outs per member. Downside to this is that each squad member levels up independently of one another, which I guess makes sense, but if you want 70 separate load outs its gonna take a while. It makes a lot more sense playing Squads as opposed to the multi-player melee stuff like TDM. I just wish I knew more people that still played CoD. Squads could actually be fun. 4.) The big maps are pumpkining HUGE, Albeit with very little vertical game play, and the smaller maps are fast, but circuitous and highly vertical, and some have stuff that changes the layout of the game mid-match like earthquakes that knock over buildings and actually change the map. 5.) So far, it seems that there are no grossly over or under powered weapons. AND i haven't seen anyone quick scoping yet, so hopefully the days of running around like a tool and pulling off 5 rapid, successive shots with a "light fifty" are over. There is nothing more frustrating than unloading half of a magazine into someone and not killing them only to turn around and see that you were killed by some ass hat that unloaded a 30 lb rifle like it was sub-machine gun. (OK, I know it's just a game, but c'mon.) 6.) The game play is more fluid. I don't know how to describe it other than that. It just seems like the player character moves and reacts more "naturally"? Say, like when you jump over a wall, it's just a smoother action and recovery.
So, the downside. 1.) They did nothing to address the glaring need to provide a greater incentive to cooperative interaction among team members. Headset or earpiece NOT required. You can still run around like a jack-off and go 7 and 33, So, spraying and praying to your hearts content and still ending up on the winning side is normal. Talking shit and being shitty even though you're ten and are not good at FPS's is still normal too. Honestly, though, I'm not sure how to remedy the amount of adolescent retards. Perhaps a Culling? 2.) The small maps are REALLY small. Like, you need to be constantlyfuckingmovingandlookingaroundheadonaswiveldiveonthegroundjumpohshit, small. And you're still gonna die 10 times. Think, Nuketown, cut by a third. Of course that may have to do with the excessive number of entry and exit points in each part of the map. There is REAL incentive to go fast and go vertical. Even more so than any other iteration of the series so far. Now, I know, part of this I put in the upside, but it is sort of a double edged sword. So, 3.) Despite it's fluidity(if that's a word) there is still something "comic-bookish" about it compared to what I've seen from Battlefield in the past two years. While it delivers in action, it doesn't approximate quite the same reality. I know it is a happy balance, and difficult, if not impossible to achieve, I suspect my dad will get B4, that's his thing, and we trade and compare notes, but the one thing that I can say about the Battlefield multi-player AND campaign, up until now, is that it is a much more intense experience. There are many more variables to account for and there is an incentive, if not a need, for cooperative tactics in multi-player. I'm not sure Battlefield would even be fun unless you had 3 or 4 guys on a team that played together regularly.
Right now, over all, I like it, for what it is. It definitely has the possibility of being more fun, playing with a regular group, but unlike Battlefield, you can still go it alone and tear shit up. If you don't like most of the other CoD generations, you probably won't like this. But if you, simply, like fast paced, blast your buddy in the face chaos and talk shit to him while you do it again, you'll like it, though it really could be so much more with the right group. I still stand by the initial feeling of being reminiscent of the original Modern Warfare. I can't quite put my finger on it yet. I loved that game, and there is something that just feels, well, similar.