It's shallow, especially compared to the FPS games that came before it. CoD has regenerating health, slow movement and hitscan weapons which means you aren’t going to avoid damage and it’s okay if you do take damage. Then you have iron sights which encourages more static play, and the fact that hip firing was made to be inaccurate so that you actually use the iron sights and it becomes a game about taking damage while dealing damage, and if you deal more damage you win. On top of that, you have a series of campaigns that used to have some with its level design, prime example being CoD4, but then became about creating variety with a bunch of set pieces that didn’t use the mechanics very well, if they even used the mechanics at all, and are just about looking cool. Even CoD4’s campaign created variety in superficial ways, with things like its airplane mission, and was mostly about creating spectacle with nukes and getting shot in a cutscene, instead of being about good gameplay and level design. And the multiplayer was designed so that it could easily be picked up by anyone, and in this case that meant that it’s simple and unsubstantial, especially when compared to the standouts of the genre.
I don't "hate" CoD, but I can easily see why it's viewed the way it is.
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