The action and pace is as intense as ever... But all that gets over in a flash
The story picks up five years after the events of the first MW in a world fraught with political tensions, what with the prime antagonist of the first MW, Imran Zakhaev being celebrated as a martyr in Russia. The plot follows two main characters Roach and Ramirez, to track down and capture the terrorist Markov, while trying to fight a war on the home-front against the invading Russian army. The story does take a few interesting twists and turns, but I'm not going to spoil them for you.
The gameplay is just as frantic and fast paced as in the first - right from the word 'go' in the training missions to the last scene of the game. Little has changed since then, and while this is not exactly a bad thing, it does take the sheen off the novelty that MW 1 brought with it.
The storyline supplies ample fuel to keep the game going, but suffers significantly, thanks to the nature of the plot. MW 1 featured a war in the middle east, which had a rather authentic feel to it, but MW 2 has the Russians invading the US, which feels more like a dark fairy tale. The flow of the story is quite muddled up, with subsequent missions feeling disconnected at times. Sometimes, you get the feeling that a certain scene did not agree properly with the rest of the story and that perhaps, it was developed for another game, but the devs decided to throw it in MW 2.
However, the biggest let-down of MW 2 is its length. You thought MW 1 was short, but wait till you play this. It's perhaps the shortest game I've ever played(Of course, excluding flash games and intended short games). For a guy who plays a game nice and slow, MW 2 was over in a little more than 7 hours. So the hardcore gamer will finish it in probably 3 to 4 hours; definitely not worth the money when you're talking about the game time.
MW 2 brings an all new Special Ops mode, which is basically a skirmish map, with the objectives varying from map to map. This is a big bonus for the single player mode of the game as the campaign fails to deliver. For anyone picking up this game for the single player, this mode truly completes the game and makes most of the value for money. The mode can be played both solo and co-op, which is again another added bonus.
With a rather disappointing single player, the game's main selling point is its multiplayer. However, here too I was a bit disappointed since the game needed Steam to play and in my opinion, Steam is broken. I've had my share of bad experiences with the Orange Box, as I had to update and use Steam to play it. And this time it was even worse, as Steam kept throwing errors and my poor net connection was no help. So I'm docking points for the multiplayer too for Steam.
With that aside, I still believe that multiplayer is THE most important component of the game. If you really want to experience MW 2, then you have to play it on LAN or online. Without that, you're not even getting half of what the game's worth.
Coming to the display, the HUD has seen some changes and while it might just need some getting used to, I still feel that it feels slightly more cramped than in MW 1. Also, the devs have simplified the mission display,so that what little thinking that had to be done for it has been completely removed. Most of the time, you end up following the big white 'Follow' tag on one of characters, without pausing to think about directions or orientation. Just keep following it, while shooting the bad guys and you're soon at the end point. This dumbs down the effect of mission variety(which is quite good, in fact), as you only see yourself doing one thing and that's 'follow'.
The graphics is crisp. While not superlative or game changing, it easily falls in with the 'great graphics' category. The textures are spotless and while the game is such that you don't focus much on distant targets, the draw distance is great. Attention to detail is also commendable.
Finally, to sound - Voice acting is solid and the sounds feel quite realistic. The game packs a punch here. Inspite of the poor 'screenplay', the voice acting does much to alleviate it, as you're absorbed by the dialogues, some coarse, some witty, but all in all, great to listen to.
VERDICT
Great game, but unless you're going to play multiplayer for the most part, you're missing much of what it has to offer. Hell, don't even buy it if you're not going to play multiplayer.