World at War is an excellent WWII FPS. The story is pretty good. The multiplayer is great. There are a lot of little things about the game I like... Like the comments made to Chernov, the misc voices around you, even the blood choking gurgles.
The chaos of the battlefield left me crouching behind cover for extended periods of time in Veteran. Too scared to stick my head up for fear of having it promptly removed.
The number one improvement (and pretty much the only one) over COD4 is the advent of dismemberment due to explosive damage. The first time I saw this was when an enemy was climbing through a window. I lobbed a grenade under him. The explosion took his legs from underneath him. His bloody stumbs plopped down on the window sill and he crumpled. Awesome.
