A short but interesting SP campaign, great multiplayer that is unfortunately dampened by glitches and cheating.
As for the SP campaign, it is very short but interesting enough to play through once. Great voice acting, good mission design (with a few exceptions), and solid (albeit predictable) storytelling make a worthy product. The opening sequence of the prologue shows a cinematic touch that I wish had been part of the BF series years ago. (I always thought EA/DICE wasted a game universe in BF2142 that was ripe for a great story.)
After being impressed with the singleplayer mode, I dove into multiplayer. The action is still fun, to be sure. All of the elements that made the SP an immersive experience are intact, with the added classic BF elements of unlocks and competing against other humans beings.
Sadly, as great as online competition is, the human element is also problematic (as it usually is). Shortly after release, BFBC2 servers were already loaded with absurdity and remain so to this day. Some examples:
* Medics running around with LMGs, firing from the hip and mowing down entire squads.
* Snipers who stand in their bases and kill people across the map, sometimes in the other base.
* Spawn raping (i.e. when players who can't play fairly venture into the enemy base and kill others as they spawn).
* Players getting knife kills from several meters away, sometimes through solid objects.
* Players looking 30 or more degrees to either side and still registering hits on a target.
* Poor hit detection, such as rockets going through vehicles and players being able to withstand multiple shotgun blasts to the gut and face, up close.
That's just a short list. Some problems are surely due to lag and design flaws, but I'm convinced that cheating in BFBC2 has already become a bit of an epidemic, as has been the case in every other BF game I've played. To call this frustrating after forking over a load of cash is an understatement.
That said, it is possible to get into a fair match on occasion. When this happens, BFBC2 is some of the best fun I've had online in quite a while. If you can tolerate cheaters or are at least willing to change servers, and can keep your blood pressure down, it's worth a try.
My only other beef with BC2 is the dev decision to omit LAN support. There's not even a cooperative campaign mode. This is horrible. Half the fun in BF2142 was loading up a bot match on the local network and playing a few rounds with just a couple of friends. Doing this is not possible in Bad Company 2. If you aren't willing to contend with cheaters, lag and whatever stipulations EA's "ranked partners" wish to impose upon you, then you have no multiplayer option. You paid your $40-$50 for a very short SP campaign. Suckage.
Despite the problems, I recommend BC2 simply because the gameplay is so entertaining, and the multiplayer is an absolute blast when cheating and lag aren't a factor. If EA cleans up its servers a bit, I'm sure I'll be inclined to increase my rating.
ADDENDUM:
So here it is a year later, and not only have our friends at EA failed to fix the rampant cheating in BFBC2, but have actually ignored the problem so that it is now worse than ever. Of course, they *did* find time to create a whole new DLC that they want to sell me for $14.99, but somehow they never got around to removing the cheaters from my game.