Best Call of Duty? No. Best Call of Duty this Year?...Kinda...
Campaign: In a convoluted world barely tied to 3Arcs previous CoD, World at War, a Man named Alex Mason is being interrogated in a most cliche hollyword fashion. The plot is dull, and requires you to give a damn about a Russian PoW (and main character from WaW) named Viktor Resnov. He, and his friends were betrayed by their commanding officer and either killed or imprisoned. He's out for revenge, which he finds in the form of an American CIA agent captured during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. You are then (re)brainwashed into hunting down the men who wronged Resnov, and haunted by his guiding image. In the end you'll romp your way across Russia, Vienam, Laos, and fight in secret labs, frozen battleships, across rooftops, and in rat tunnels. It's action packed, but lacks real sense of direction. The game also features far too many on the rails sequences, many of which are not nearly intense or fast enough to stay fun. At least the helicopter level is a huge improvement from World at Wars tank level. Veteran difficulty is once again a pain. Treyarch decided that finite numbers of enemies and decent checkpoints were too easy. Once again enemies attack in waves, forcing a blind advance. This is hindered by some very very bad checkpoints. Veteran is somewhere between CoD4 and WaW difficulty.
Overall Campaign is a 7.5, not nearly good enough to hold the game up on its own.
Multiplayer: The crown jewel of Call of Duty. It's supposed to be the most enjoyable part, but its not. Treyarch has done some good balancing out certain aspects, but other areas fall flat. Easily the worst part of MW2, besides the hacks, was the infinite OMA grenade launcher spam. Treyarch has done away with OMA, and nerfed the "noob tube" to barely be better than a frag. They have also moved shotguns to primary status and removed the ability to quickscope. However, they took both these too far. Shotguns recieved a range nerf, making them only slightly better than CoD4 counterparts, and SMGs are once again completely better. Sniper rifles have also become so innaccurate upon aiming, most enemies will shoot you first, cause viewkick, and your demise. Of the Remaining weapons, a handful of them are all around better than their clone counterparts. The AK74u and Spectre beat all other SMGs, the FAMAS, Aug, Galil, and Commando trump the other assault rifles, but in themselves are not terribly dissimilar. The M60 crushes the other LMGs, which are just heinous assault rifles. Removing stopping power should have been a reason to diversify the weapons, not make them clones. Treyarch clearly shows they cannot balance weapons.
The maps are better than MW2, but the spawn system is somehow worse, which is inexcusable. Its so bad, Treyarch is requesting videos to try and find a fix. The killstreaks, like everything else ingame, were fixed one way and broken another. They no longer stack, meaning the kills from one killstreak do not effect earning another. Unfortunately, the higher killstreaks are incredibly easy to counter. One player can easily counter a gunship or chopper gunner before it even enters the map. The one saving grace is most players are too thick to play smart, and will feed helicopters kills all day. The one definingly worst part of multiplayer remains the netcode. Call of Duty, a game priding itself on fast pace and intense action, still uses P2P servers. This means all users in a match are connected to a host xbox, the player with the best connection is deemed the host. This causes huge issues where the host gains super powers, because all his actions are instant, while other players reactions are only as good as their ping. Host migrations are common, especially given the number of ragequitters. The games hit detection and lag compensation are poor, causing many players to camp, given the inconsistency of their weapons. Head on engagements are often determined by connection.
Overall Multiplayer is slighly more bearable than MW2, it removes some of the larger problems but adds so many more of its own, and exhausts long standing issues. I give it an 8, this game won't last 6 months.
Final Verdict: Black Ops was a hastily made title created purely for milking a successful series even more, made fast and cheap by Activisions' B-Team developers. It will most likely recieve better community support than MW2, but overall it will never achieve the level of greatness that players have been longing for since Call of Duty 4.