Modern Warfare 2: Campaign Review

The first thing that will strike you when you begin to play the Modern Warfare 2 campaign is just how similar it feels to the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare campaign it feels. The game is certainly familiar, but doesn’t feel like it offers anything original. That is something that will remain with you as you make your way through the campaign. On the whole, the campaign feels more like an expansion of the original game. You’ll likely feel that the MW2 campaign would have been better off as a $30 expansion pack than a standalone game.

As you get further into the campaign, you’ll also notice that the story seems very disjointed. Unlike recently released games such as Uncharted 2 that have compelling stories, Modern Warfare 2’s story seems to be a number of massive set pieces that the developers threw in without thinking about the significance they play. You’ll probably find yourself wondering what is actually going on, especially if you don’t watch all the cutscenes and pre-mission briefings.

The campaign is also shockingly short. I played through the first five or six missions and realised that I’d finish the game far too quickly, so I restarted the campaign on veteran difficulty (the hardest difficulty available). I still finished the entire campaign, on the hardest difficulty, in less than eight hours. That was something I found quite disappointing, especially after the epic campaign I had experience in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I really feel that Infinity Ward took the easy way out with this title, opting to tack on a sub-par campaign, in order to churn out the game sooner.

Look out for my reviews of the co-operative Special Ops and the competitive multiplayer modes shortly. I’ve put in some time on the Spec Ops mode to date, but I don’t feel I’m ready to review it until I’ve tried (and likely failed) all the missions. Look out for new reviews in the coming few days.