Ever since the first one I've been trying to like them because they're massively popular. However I have just never gotten into them or their multiplayer. My problem with the single player is it is too linear, you never really have control and you're never able to move at your own pace. Other games like Half-Life are linear but theres lots of areas to go and explore a bit and find east eggs. I never really feel like I'm being pushed through the game, but I'm going through as I wish. The other good thing about Half-Life is story telling is all done in game but with COD they try to do it between levels. I hate the dated level design, Half-Life always got the one long level design done that no other FPS has even tried, which I find weird.
In COD games I just feel like you see a door and you can't open it. The NPCs control everything and it just feels like you might as well be watching a movie, I'm never challenged and never really playing. This is great for the casual player who wants to pick up a game and constantly be in an epic movie, for me however I just don't find the gameplay appealing.
Modern Warfare 2 is worse for me because it just feels tired and feels like they wanted to make every moment that moment that made COD 4 worth playing. You know the sinking ship, nuke going off, Chernobyl or being shot in the head. As a result all these moments in Modern Warfare 2 just feel fake and overplayed and just not fun or believable. The airport scene for example feels like it was put in for the bad press, because that travels fast and it's like free advertising. I didn't have a problem with it, I even shot everyone, however it felt out of place and not very well done. At the of the level theres a twist that you feel like you already saw in COD4.
The multiplayer is something I've never gotten in to with COD games but at least they had basic features you need for PC gaming. Theres no ping numbers anymore so you have to go by ping bars which are no indication to what your ping is. 4 green bars can be anywhere between 0 - 200, anyone knows 200 in an FPS is unplayable. Theres no dedicated servers so all of the PC server community has gone and theres no SDK so you wont be able to creature maps or make mods which is what defines an online FPS for the PC.
Theres no server browser as well so you have to use this matchmaking service which is really inconsistent and step backwards to what we're used to with dedicated servers. Sometimes you'll get into a game but a lot of the time it'll take ages. Then you'll come up with games where the host leaves and you have to wait for it to find a new host. You'll often come up against laggy servers which is very annoying, especially when you put all these things together. The worst thing is having to wait each time a game is over, why can't it be seamless like dedicated servers? I love the 24/7 one map servers so I can just stay in a game and constantly keep going for hours. Even basic functions like being able to choose what map you want to play on aren't there. For console plays this might be able how you play games, for the PC guys this is a disgrace.
I don't even like how the multiplayer functions because it is so unbalanced, especially the double shotguns. I just hate all the leveling up and not having full access to all the multiplayer modes straight away. I'm not allowed to play how I want and what I loved about COD 4 is you could download some files and get past all that. Counter Strike works so well because you have access to the weapons as you want them and don't have to do this whole leveling up crap. I hate how when you jump over something, it takes you out of the game for this canned animation. I want to be in control of my character all the time like how Valve do it. Finally I hate all the numbers on the screen all the time, they fill too much of it and become far too distracting. Counter Strike is simple and it's better because of it.
I just don't like the game, it offered me nothing much to be excited about and felt like a lackluster COD 4 clone done two years on. Graphically the game is fine, sound wise it is fine and it isn't a really bad game. However I just didn't enjoy much of it and it felt like everything has been done before and better.
