All-around, it's a great game, but it might not please every fan of the series.
The single player campaign works differently this time around, working more historically. You play battles as they actually happened over World War Two, starting with the Russian front in 1941, and eventually all the way to the end in 1945, playing as a British, Russian, and American soldier on all of the fronts of WWII. It is challenging and the AI will keep you on your toes.
The presentation of the game is hands-down amazing. Even on medium to low graphics, the game looks and sounds great. The soldiers look great, the guns and tanks look downright amazing, and the environments are well-made and elaborate. You can duck behind a broken wall, a destroyed vehicle, or a cloud of smoke from your smoke grenades.
Multiplayer is also very amazing, having a large share of excellent servers and well-made mods for the game. Although, the learning curve is hard if you're new to First-Person Shooters, as many players online are hardcore soldiers. However, the only way to get better is to practice, practice, practice!
Although, the game seems to be harder to mod than the original Call of Duty, or United Offensive. It has a share of frame per second issues, glitches and bugs, but have been recently fixed it newer patches.
The one thing that bothers me about Call of Duty 2, is the fact that gameplay-wise, it just feel likes Call of Duty 1, with better graphics. Call of Duty: United Offensive offered things like deployable machine guns, and sprinting, and Call of Duty 2 was missing with all the things United Offensive added, and essentially feels like the first game. However, some players despised the addition of sprinting, tanks, jeeps and deployable machine guns, so it all comes down to the preference of the player.
Overall, however, it is a solid shooter and an excellent addition to the Call of Duty series. If you want a great shooter to have loads of fun on, this is one of those games that should be recommended to all shooter fans.