Right now, COD is definitely better, but I see them as being pretty equal as entire franchises.
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault was one of the best WWII shooters ever, and I can still remember being overwhelmed by the Normandy beach invasion. The multiplayer was good, and the campaign was excellent. I also enjoyed MOH on the original Playstation. Over the past several years, though, they've been trying to rejuvenate the franchise with more open battlefields. Those have also been enjoyable, but they have also been incredibly short and filled with bugs and glitches. European Assault on the original xbox was fun until the final boss fight glitched several times in several different ways making it almost impossible to finish. Now Airborne is another attempt at the open battlefield with a parachuting gimmik thrown in. And while it is enjoyable, it is in no way memorable except for the bugs and glitches. So it appears that either they've stopped caring, or their budget has shrunk to the point that they can't produce a full length game and test it to work out the bugs. The multiplayer is bland with very little distinguishing it from the multiplayer experience of Allied Assault (not bad, but a few years late). So yeah, they aren't that great now, but if they put the effort into the franchise, they could come up with some outstanding games.
The first few COD games felt like generic rip-offs of Allied Assault. I even went back and replayed Finest Hour and Big Red One recently on my original xbox, and Finest Hour was nothing but generic while Big Red One was a bit more enjoyable. I did enjoy what I played of COD2 and 3 on the 360, but I've not finished either of those games. COD4 is obviously a magnificent game, but I was disappointed in the little bit of W@W that I played (although I plan on playing it through next month). It isn't that W@W was a bad game, but the AI was laughable with Japanese troops running through my entire squad without firing a shot so they could try to melee me when I was around a corner and out of sight from them to begin with. And the difficulty settings just felt cheap. Of course they change how much damage you take, but other than that, the difficulty comes entirely from placing you in insanely ridiculous situations and expecting you to survive with little to no cover. Any part that doesn't resort to that, of the little bit I played, could be done easily with a pistol on the third difficulty setting (Hardened, I think). But still, COD is the better game for the moment, but both franchises have made good games and still have the potential for great games.
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