Usagi Vindaloo said:
I think the author's argument is very clear. It is NOT "there need to be fewer Muslim villains" but has always been "there need to be more Muslim heroes," or on a more nuanced level, "there need to be more Muslim characters who are more than just cannon fodder/stock bad guys."
"It is this sort of spirit that's on display in many videogames: Muslims are villainous killers whose only purpose is to serve as bullet sponges. Like Indians in a 1950s Western, the Arabs of these games are swarthy, savage, bloodthirsty madmen who gibber incoherently at the hero as they try to mow him down. There's only one sane way to deal with such a threat - blow 'em all to Kingdom Come. And that's just what we are encouraged to do in games like Metal Slug 2, Full Spectrum Warrior, Desert Strike, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, America's Army, and so on.
Unlike the "Exotic East" heroes, the villains in these games are present-day Arabs and Muslims. In the slightly less offensive versions of these games, the bad guys are from imaginary or unspecified countries. But increasingly, as games have aimed for more and more supposed realism, the countries and villains depicted are real places where real people live. A truly realistic game would investigate the complexities of the conflicts they depict, and would show that the "hostile levels' of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc., are in reality countries where the vast majority of the population are civilians - women, children, and men just trying to live their lives without being blown to pieces. The aliens of the Halo franchise are more humanized than the bad guys in America's Army, who are really just endlessly spawning born-to-die vermin with AK-47s and rocket launchers."
He doesn't just want muslim heroes- he has a problem with them being portrayed as villains.
Bonus points for the fact that he clearly hasn't played American's Army or Full Spectrum Warrior, and has no clue what either game is like.