You either love or hate the COD series for what it does. I like it. But do you? Let's dig into Modern Warfare 3.
The game picks up just a little bit after MW2's cliffhanger ending leaving you with several questions finally answering them. As typical in COD fashion, you see the story through the perspective through the eyes of multiple soldiers of different fronts to really see what is totally going on. The story takes you all around the world in crazy situations and it does conclude nicely. giving you a feeling closure and tying everything from MW1 and MW2, Hopefully we wont be seeing any MW4 :p.
Okay now, lets face it and become Captain Obvious. The campaign has become more of a side addition to the COD series lately. Multiplayer is why millions of people pre-order these games. The MP is huge, robust, and can be complex to understand at first. But after tinkering with it for a while you should get how things work. As before in previous entries in the series, you have a leveling system that lets you unlock stuff and personalize you soldier for battle by giving you the weapons and equipment you desire. The maps are fairly well designed give or take. They range in terms of long to close range to spice things up in terms of combat style. People are likely to hate some maps while love some other maps. The modes also really the change the way you look at the maps so I would say that the maps are decent and do vary the situations you get in MP. In Black Ops, we got something called "COD" points. They were money that you earned from getting kills, winning matches, and completing challenges. So once you unlocked either weapons or equipment you had access to all the accessories they had. So I could unlock an AK-47 with a silencer and ACOG scope right there. But in MW3, this system has been ditched and it's back the old way of having to repetitively complete challenges to get all the accessories for the weapons and equipment. This is a letdown because the money system from Black Ops was very well done and eased the repetitive things you have to do to get stuff. But aside from that gripe you either love or hate COD's MP. Campers and hackers is not the games fault so don't blame the game for that.
The final mode in the game in Spec Ops which has made its return from MW2 to MW3. This time around it's bigger and better than last time. There are co-op mission objectives to complete that are inspired from the campaign of the game. They require teamwork and offer much replay value for you and your buddies. The survival mode is Infinity Wards official answer to Treyarch's Zombies. You begin the match with just a handgun and once you get kills and points you can upgrade your weapons to be more deadly and contain more ammo to burn through waves upon waves of enemy infantry and artillery. You can also call in airstrikes, helicopter attacks, call in friendly soldiers to assist you in battle and much more.This mode is extremely fun to play with your buddies and it definitely rivals against the Nazi Zombies from Treyarch's take on call of duty.
The graphics, sound, and voice acting is definitely impressive but not the best we've seen this generation of gaming. So many things are happening in the game and there are no freezes to distract you or stop you in your experiences. The voice acting holds up well and grabs your attention to hold you through the story and its events. The Modern Warfare series has been quite a run. The first one spawned this new series of Modern war shooters but the MW series will remain memorable for generations with its exciting gameplay and intense action. I give the game an 9.0 because the action, gun fights have greatly differed from MW2 and Black Ops but there is enough new content to call it a sequel. Stay tuned for Call of Duty 2012 with Treyarch as developer! :P