THIS REVIEW IS BASED SOLELY ON MULTIPLAYER GAME MODES - I have not played any of the campaign, and my score may change upon doing so.
I'm in no means a professional gamer. I don't play for money. I go to school, work, and play games to unwind at the end of the day. That being said, and not to brag, I'm pretty good at video games. Whether it's Battlefield (BF), Halo, COD, Ghost Recon, or another shooter, I typically place as the top 1-3 players in any lobby I'm in. That's not the case for COD: Ghosts.
The multiplayer of COD: Ghosts feels very different from any of its predecessors. Normally, COD games have a run and gun feel to them. Players are typically encouraged to move fast and to move often, whether it's to out-position your enemies or capture objective. COD: Ghosts on the other hand encourages much more thought out, tactical, and strategic decisions. I rarely find myself sprinting anymore unless I have to get to a specific objective or I'm chasing an enemy. Instead, I feel encouraged to move slowly, check my corners, the areas above me, and ultimately just act more purposefully during games. Part of this has to do with level design.
As a general matter, I feel the maps are small. I don't mean like Nuketown small, but relatively small. However, the levels have tremendous DEPTH. Every level is filled with buildings, windows, multiple levels, underground tunnels, etc. Ghosts actually has much more of a BF feel to it because the player is encouraged to at least try to go everywhere in their environment. Sure, you can't parachute out of a helicopter and land on a skyscraper, but you're able to go inside and use many more buildings than in any other game of the COD series, and I feel the most we've seen since the original Modern Warfare.
The level design, in my opinion, encourages people to camp. Especially in objective based game modes. In Black Ops 2 (BO2), my friends and I played domination almost exclusively, and we were obsessed with trying to trip cap our enemies. In Ghosts, I feel that trip capping isn't encouraged, and is rarely possible. Instead, in nearly every game I play, the way to win is to take two points and then camp them out. No longer do I feel encouraged to push the enemy base, to take all three objectives. Every objective is basically in the open, free of cover, and also has countless vantage points where you can be taken out from. It's impossible to check every single vantage point before trying to take an objective, and because of that, it's much easier to camp on these levels and secure yourself a win. The level design, especially when combined with the new ability to lean around corners, has led me to numerous times just walk through a door way and be instantly dead. *I don't normally complain about campers, I just find an alternate route to them and take them out. But in Ghosts, I really do feel like players are encouraged to camp.*
I both like and dislike the new death times in Ghosts. For anyone who hasn't played yet, you die FAST. I mean fast. It's not like CODs past where you can get shot, run to cover, return fire, and ultimately win a gun fight. No, 8/10 times if you're enemy fires upon you first, you're gonna die. It really changes the feel of COD. That's what I don't like about it. Of course I love it when it works in my favor. I love being able to kill enemies quickly and with relatively few bullets. But it doesn't feel like COD. And that's what I don't like.
Innovations. Does this game really have any? That's my biggest gripe. I don't feel like this COD really does anything. Sure, there are new perks, new weapons, and new killstreaks. But that's to be expected. All shooters always have that. But there's nothing new that COD does and does well. Trying to draw from BF again, Ghosts attempts to implement interactive environments, but doesn't do it with the skill and precision of BF. The perks system is nearly identical to the perks system in BO2, and the unlock system is nearly identical to the unlock system in the original BO. I just don't feel that the multiplayer of Ghosts takes any significant strides forward. You can play as a female soldier... That's about it. Other than that, Ghosts doesn't really do much to bring something new to the table.
Ghosts is still a good game. But it's not perfect. It has a lot of flaws, and maybe some of those will be taken care of in subsequent patches and updates. Or maybe I'll take care of them myself by learning the maps better and figuring out ideal class set ups. Nonetheless, Ghosts is the first shooter in a long time that I haven't been able to just pick up and excel at. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. Certainly, Ghosts is more challenging, and that's always good. I don't want to just steamroll my opponents at every turn. But what's the cost? The cost is that the game no longer feels like a COD game. If this game had the same level of difficulty, but still felt like COD, I'd probably score it an 8/10 or potentially higher. But I feel that in an attempt to innovate, which in my opinion is unsuccessful, they managed to lose the essence of COD. And that's really really sad.