If you like FPS games: buy this game now!
Story is not so special, but the way that it´s told is.You play as two different characters: one serves in the British S.A.S. and the other in the American U.S.M.C. The main goal is to stop a terrorist organization known as Al-Asad, which may have nuclear weapons at their disposal. You get a lot of help from your team mates and this has always been an important aspect in Call of Duty games: you are not supposed to win this war alone. There are no cutscenes to speak of and the story is told through your character´s eyes just like in Half-Life.
Graphics are nearly as good as in Gears of War and you may want to play the campaign through multiple times just to see those great visuals again once more. Sound is also good creating that chaotic feel of a real battlefield and since it is based on a real world everything sounds as it should be. I really wish the audio visual presentation in all games would be like it is in Call of Duty 4.
Gameplay is a typical shooter with different guns and grenades, but again it´s the way the story is told that makes it so great. There is no health bar and instead of collecting first aid kits you take cover and after a while your health will regenerate. Maybe it´s not so realistic, but it makes your life a little easier. The game uses checkpoints to save your progress and they come frequently so you don´t get frustrated.
The bad thing is that there´s an infinite amount of enemies until you reach a certain spot. This creates an atmosphere of action, but especially on higher difficulties it can make things a lot harder than they should be. But you don´t really notice this if (or when) you are constantly pushing forward. Also Single Player campaign is really for just one player: there is no co-op what so ever.
Multiplayer is like a whole another game. There´s a lot of different weapons and all of them can have multiple upgrades as you progress. On top of that there are many different other challenges to do aside the actual gameplay. Also your level and rank is constantly rising and never lowering so all of this makes Call of Duty 4´s multiplayer an enjoyable experience that takes you a long time. As you would expect the game modes are plenty ranging from regular Team Deathmatch to Sabotage all the way to different Hardcore modes, which is an obvious choice for advanced players. Call of Duty 4 is the first game in my gaming history that I´ve played on Xbox Live for 10 hours before even touching the Single Player mode.
Unfortunately not all is great in multiplayer. The ability to mute annoying players is much more clunky than it should be and sometimes an assigned party can be separated in the process of finding a new match.
Call of Duty series was getting a little stale in it´s part 3, but Modern Warfare updates the franchise to a whole new level. With longer campaign and no problems in multiplayer I would have given this game a full 10, but as it is it´s still one of the best games I´ve played in a while. Go out there and buy it.