There's a chance this entry will get me utterly shanked, but I'm going to risk it. Kkeep in mind, this is me voicing my opinion.

Modern Warfare 2 is nothing special and is not deserving of the shit pants enthusiasm the gaming community is dumping on it. I am not in any way saying the game is bad. Far from it, it's a highly polished FPS game with some serious production values oozing from the screen. All the Call of Duty games have had high production values.

My problem here is that MW2 adds absolutely nothing to the genre. Its gameplay is stale. Dull. Boring. It's a very archaic shooter and a simple point and shoot affair. Innovation is not something that comes to the Call of Duty series.

Call of Duty 2 was the first game I picked up for the Xbox 360 when the console was released. I spent a few weeks playing the game while waiting for a large shipment of controllers, games and periferals to reach me up in Iceland. I had fun, but once I got some other games like Gun, it was quickly put to the side in favor sof something more original. It was a WW2 shooter. A fun one, but still nothing to write home about. As a gamer, I've killed more Nazis than the allied forces and Indiana Jones combined.

Eventually, games like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter came down the pipe, and I was blown away by the game's team command system and cover mechanics. That's what I want in a shooter, some innovation. Now, admittedly I'm a Tom Clancy game nut. Rainbow Six equally blew me away with it's psychoticly good cover mechanics. But bias aside, they added something new to the genre. Call of Duty's gameplay mechanics are a step backwards for me.

I buy games in two categories: fresh experiences and games in franchises I enjoy. I'm the type of guy to pick up a game like Mirror's Edge and enjoy it simply because it's something I've never seen before. I'm also the type of guy to pick up a Halo game simply because I love the story. Halo hasn't added anything new to first person games since the first one gave us a good console control scheme for shooters.

Call of Duty gives me nothing fresh. The WW2 entries tell me a story I've heard over and over, and the Modern Warfare entries give me an interesting but bland war story. I could find better stories in a Tom Clancy game. The gameplay is old and stale when you compare it to more modern offerings. It certainly LOOKS good, however. Like I said earlier, it provides one hell of a cinematic experience and is a gorgeous game. But at best it's a mask to hide the gameplay and story short comings.

now I hear the multiplayer is where it's at, but I really have yet to even play it. After the single player offering with COD4, I felt so underwhelmed that I moved on elsewhere to greener pastures. I've read about the perk systems, and it certainly sound sinteresting (though it has been done before). But I cant make the leap.