What Would Battlefield Be Like WITHOUT All The Bugs, Exploiters, and a Better Multiplayer Model?
To start, the criticisms of the single-player campaign seem to be coming from the perspective of someone who only plays on the lowest setting in order to get through the game as quick as possible and move on to the multiplayer action. In the single-player campaign, you will be presented with eight missions that offer up plenty of wartime story elements about the loss of worldwide resources and the threat of nuclear winter falling upon us all. The story is told through both the narrative perspective of a press journalist and the action you partake in. While the game doesn't have a huge, gripping personal story, it does offer up more than many single-player campaigns have to offer (in turn, I'm saying that this game's narrative beats the hell out of both the horrendous BlackSite Area 51 AND the critically-acclaimed Crysis). Many will believe that the beginning of the "Graveyard" mission is a blatant rip-off of "Shock and Awe" from CoD4, but given that the development cycle on this game has been going for almost as long as CoD 4 went, it can easily be dismissed as a mere coincidence.
The single-player AI, on the lowest and even medium settings, can be relatively easy. Crank it up to the highest difficulty and you'll find yourself having to redeploy plenty of times. That's not to say that you can't beat the game...but you may have to put a little extra effort out to keep yourself above water from time to time. Especially in missions like "Mountain King", where the enemy can pinpoint you quickly with a massive force, it seems that the single-player is being bashed for little reason.
The multiplayer portion of the game excels in areas where the Battlefield franchise has continued to fail. Rather than use the idea of uncappable bases, Kaos has instilled a "frontline" component that keeps the battle exactly where it should be. No longer will you find guys sneaking around the back to grab a base miles away from where your entire team is located. Keeping these cat and mouse chases down to a minimum and focusing on hardcore battle action is something that create multiplayer match heaven! Hit detection on the character models is rather iffy, but the guns all handle in very unique ways. Drones can be rather annoying in a multiplayer game, especially with all the hiding spots available for people to deploy and take cheap kills, but the balance of this comes in the form of environmental destruction on almost all the buildings located on any particular map. A prime example is on the Village map, a small 8 player map that features tons of destruction to be had by all, meaning everyone is a relatively open target. The big vehicle maps easily span past the limitations found in BF2 and BF2142, but the only downside to all of this is how few maps are included with the initial package. With only a handful of maps (I believe the count is around 10), it makes for a rather boring time after a while if you are already sick of Solar Farm or Street. Sadly, there isn't really a map that screams out "Strike at Karkand", but at the same time, it's a good thing because it means you're more than likely going to sample all the maps rather than sticking to one particular spot.
The graphics show a good use of the UE3 engine on both console and PC, but for PC users, it does mean you'll have to be sporting some high-end gear to enjoy it. Even with that, you'll experience some bad frame rate drops that can be the difference between staying alive and taking a dirt nap. In multiplayer, I had to bring the graphic qualities down by almost half in order to keep the frame rate from dropping way too often (and a little hint: take the motion blur off). Regardless, the game is gorgeous, and despite again what Mr. Dodson has to say, the physics are excellent in the game. Crushing buildings with a precision air strike or dropping tank shells on an area full of sandbags is highly satisfying and gives you so many more opportunities not available in "that other game".
Frontlines is a huge improvement on the Battlefield formula, and the criticisms that have been thrown its way seem to be from those who just haven't dealt with the buggy games that EA keeps throwing at us.