Short multiplayer, fun spec ops and challenging multiplayer. All an FPS-fan needs.
The game consists of 3 different 'rooms': single player, multiplayer and spec ops. I'll look at these one by one. (To be honest, I have put to this day less than 10 hours into the game, so my view may be a little skewed.)
Single Player:
To be blunt: this is way too short. I completed the campaign in about 6 and a half hours on the regular difficulty. It will probably take me a little longer on Hardened or Veteran, but in general the campaign never felt impossible.
Most of the time I could let my teammates go ahead and take the heat of a battle for me to go in and finish the job. A bit cowardly, but the game granted me this option often and that is troubling. I never felt in control.
The positive thing about MW2 is the stunning chaos all around you. Anybody who says they know what to do right off the bat in the big battles is lying. This is war as it probably is in real life and should be experienced as such. For me no war.
Multiplayer:
Granted: I am a 'single player' player. I love games like Fallout 3 where I can just immerse myself for hours on end. Stepping into the world of mayhem that is multiplayer MW2 was a bit startling. That said I have to admit that this 'room' is totally alright. The speed is incredibly fast, the adversaries are relentless (they spent a lot more time on this than me) and the leveling system gives a nive edge to an otherwise rather pointless activity. Kudos.
Special Ops:
That there are the Special Ops. I was not expecting this to be really interesting. After finishing the single player and dabbling a little in multi player I decided to give this a go. And I was NOT disappointed. This is were tactics and other survival techniques come into play. The fact that there are NO checkpoints anywhere during the missions makes this 'room' all the more enjoyable. Finally you really get the sense that you are fighting with the peril of dying. And dying of course means you must start over from the very beginning. Even at the lower intensities the missions become increasingly challenging and addictive. I will probably be playing the spec ops for a long long time.
Overall grade: an 8 with points deducted for a short and unchallenging single player campaign.
BTW: I will be going back to the single player campaign on a higher difficulty to see what that entails.