Cyberjester said:
I like your list.
Off topic, a lot of the bad press MW2 gets I think is based partly on how it lacks dedicated servers, making it a pain to play multiplayer on a PC. And we PC gamers can get pretty loud if we don't like something..
Not only that, Modern Warfare 2 is riddled with bugs (which become bannable offenses), balancing issues, matchmaking failures, network hiccups, broken party systems, some really bad maps (I mean, what the crap is Estate? It's just KOTH. It is not a Team Deathmatch appropriate map. If you have the mansion, you've pretty much won) and a not so great community.
Matchmaking games
I remember when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 first came out, games felt really fair and balanced. However, that might be because everyone had the same weapons and not everyone was using the stupid "I'm a Ninja" class. This complaint has nothing to do with me being "bad" at MW2, I tend to win most of my games with me placing in the top 4 players (mostly).
If you've played this game online, then you'll agree with me on the fact that some non-sniper rifle weapons are waaaaaaaay too powerful and they shouldn't kill you (you being in perfect health) in one body shot from across the map.
Oh, and don't get me started on spawning. I mean, you'd think that QA would have picked up on this but the spawn system is really really bad. You can be spawned right next to an enemy, which wouldn't be too bad if they weren't looking right at you. It's just as bad as the spawn system in Team SWAT (I <3 team swat) in Halo 3.
The community
But that aside, I find that most people you'll get matched up with tend to be the really annoying, flaming racist/sexist/elitist speech spewing jerks. MW2's community is pretty much made up of players like this. Does everyone have to behave like they are some tough hardass gangster? Really? Who are you trying to impress? Your friends? Like they'll care after a day. You look like a dick online and everyone thinks you are an
idiot.
I mean, there are people who behave like this in other online games, but you encounter these people in MW2 more frequently than any other game I've played.
Now, I tend to not pay attention to what other people say online (unless it's my friends) but
the level of language being thrown at other players is uncalled for. It is way beyond trash talk. This is hate speech going on here.
This is a mature game people, let's act mature rather than a 14 year old who just learned a bunch of new swear words.
The frustrating part about the matchmaking system is that the people who tend to be a river of obscenities tend to be on your team, even if you file a review to avoid them (which the game doesn't take into account). Sure you can mute those people, but in this game, you need all the intel you can get and these
people travel in packs.
MW2 used to be fun and I really don't want all these problems to ruin the game, but with IW's constant failures and the terrible matchmaking system, it's really hard to prevent these things from ruining the experience.
If you step back and look at the game as a whole,
it feels like MW2 is just hype. Infinity Ward got lucky with CoD4: MW, and I think it's because it was something different in the series that no one was expecting. The industry is a gamble, stats have proven that games that are in series sell better than games that are not. But even with series, the idea is to stay true to the form of the other games. CoD4 was something going beyond the tired tradition of the same game over and over again (the Madden syndrome).
And Russ,
just because a game is popular doesn't mean it's good.
tl;dr:
CoD: MW2 goes to show you that while you can have a budget that reaches the stars, there's
no guarantee that your game won't be Superman 64.
