Hard to tell, but this may contain spoilers.
Let me start out by telling what foot I am on by giving a brief impression of the prequel. I loved Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. There were so many things great about it; there was the graphics, the shooter mechanics, the campaign, the cinematic experiences, a nice well explained story, and an outstanding multi-player mode.
In Modern Warfare 2, there have been some improvements, but also some losses as well. The campaign is rich with action. The cinematic experiences are even better, the voice acting is still great, and it is still rich with action. However, there are drawbacks too. The campaign's completion time is reduced from 10-15 hours to 4-5 hours. In MW1, the formula they used was great for the mix of action, stealth, cinematic, etc. When I went through this campaign, I couldn't help but have a feeling in my mind "wait, haven't I seen all of this stuff before?" It seemed like Infinity Ward was saying "Hey, the formula for MW1 was great, let's use the exact same thing in this game!" I'm not saying it hasn't changed, but if you think about it, the core of it all hasn't changed at all. Lastly, the story is not explained in the least bit. I could ask at least 5 basic questions about the storyline that would be impossible to answer without me saying "wait, what?" One more thing: when playing the campaign, play at the difficulty that you're sure you can play at, as in don't try pushing yourself. It's not fun in this game when you do so. The game was designed in a way that it will just get more frustrating when you play at higher difficulty levels, and you will find yourself inevitably memorizing where enemies are and different routes on the map to get past a certain part. In most games it feels good to push beyond your limits. Not here.
Multiplayer seems to have the same effect on me with its improvements and losses. I have the PC version, so I'm just going to get it over with and say "Really, Infinity Ward? No dedicated servers? And replace it with a faulty matchmaking system?! Comon!" Multiplayer has the addition of about 15 kill-streak rewards. Some may think this is great and that it brings out the fun, but really, it just seems to make me hate the idea that these kill-streaks are specifically designed to keep the losers down, and the winners getting ridiculous amounts of kills because he has an AC-130 and no one could take it down without firing at least 3 rockets at it, which by the time you do, it will have killed you at least 4 times, and all your other teammates the same amount. Also, the tactical nuke is specifically made to make you automatically win and get another 10 kills if you get a 25 kill-streak, which just seems like a buzzkill to the other 10 players. All in all, the new kill-streaks just seem to irritate me more than not. The actual multi-player maps also have their flaws. Other call of duty multi-player games were supposed to simulate war, with a whole lot of people on the battlefield fighting it out. You didn't have to camp out or hide in the shadows to win. In MW2, the maps are specifically designed to be eye candy, and as a consequence to most of the maps, the campers cannot be stopped, and at any moment a guy could come up behind you stabbing you with a knife.It lost its war-like feel to me.
Spec ops mode is a nice addition to MW2, by the way. You replay certain moments from the campaign, MW1's campaign, and also just random awesome moments, where you must overcome a given challenge. A very fulfilling addition. There's also co-op mode, so if you have friends on XBox Live or on Steam, you can work together to complete a certain spec ops mission.
All in all, Modern Warfare 2 seems about average to me. It loses its straightforward campaign feel, a freshness in its formula, and suffers from a lack of dedicated servers on the PC version, an excessive amount of kill-streak rewards, and too much eye candy in the multi-player maps, etc etc etc. It does, however, keep good mechanics of a shooter, and has the nice addition of spec-ops mode. All I know is that with most shooters, even without a multi-player addition, I will play them for months and months without getting bored of them. With Modern Warfare 2, even with its multi-player and spec-ops additions, I got out of playing MW2 in less than two months. For a quarter of that time, it was because I was in the mood to play MW1 a lot more.
Let me start out by telling what foot I am on by giving a brief impression of the prequel. I loved Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. There were so many things great about it; there was the graphics, the shooter mechanics, the campaign, the cinematic experiences, a nice well explained story, and an outstanding multi-player mode.
In Modern Warfare 2, there have been some improvements, but also some losses as well. The campaign is rich with action. The cinematic experiences are even better, the voice acting is still great, and it is still rich with action. However, there are drawbacks too. The campaign's completion time is reduced from 10-15 hours to 4-5 hours. In MW1, the formula they used was great for the mix of action, stealth, cinematic, etc. When I went through this campaign, I couldn't help but have a feeling in my mind "wait, haven't I seen all of this stuff before?" It seemed like Infinity Ward was saying "Hey, the formula for MW1 was great, let's use the exact same thing in this game!" I'm not saying it hasn't changed, but if you think about it, the core of it all hasn't changed at all. Lastly, the story is not explained in the least bit. I could ask at least 5 basic questions about the storyline that would be impossible to answer without me saying "wait, what?" One more thing: when playing the campaign, play at the difficulty that you're sure you can play at, as in don't try pushing yourself. It's not fun in this game when you do so. The game was designed in a way that it will just get more frustrating when you play at higher difficulty levels, and you will find yourself inevitably memorizing where enemies are and different routes on the map to get past a certain part. In most games it feels good to push beyond your limits. Not here.
Multiplayer seems to have the same effect on me with its improvements and losses. I have the PC version, so I'm just going to get it over with and say "Really, Infinity Ward? No dedicated servers? And replace it with a faulty matchmaking system?! Comon!" Multiplayer has the addition of about 15 kill-streak rewards. Some may think this is great and that it brings out the fun, but really, it just seems to make me hate the idea that these kill-streaks are specifically designed to keep the losers down, and the winners getting ridiculous amounts of kills because he has an AC-130 and no one could take it down without firing at least 3 rockets at it, which by the time you do, it will have killed you at least 4 times, and all your other teammates the same amount. Also, the tactical nuke is specifically made to make you automatically win and get another 10 kills if you get a 25 kill-streak, which just seems like a buzzkill to the other 10 players. All in all, the new kill-streaks just seem to irritate me more than not. The actual multi-player maps also have their flaws. Other call of duty multi-player games were supposed to simulate war, with a whole lot of people on the battlefield fighting it out. You didn't have to camp out or hide in the shadows to win. In MW2, the maps are specifically designed to be eye candy, and as a consequence to most of the maps, the campers cannot be stopped, and at any moment a guy could come up behind you stabbing you with a knife.It lost its war-like feel to me.
Spec ops mode is a nice addition to MW2, by the way. You replay certain moments from the campaign, MW1's campaign, and also just random awesome moments, where you must overcome a given challenge. A very fulfilling addition. There's also co-op mode, so if you have friends on XBox Live or on Steam, you can work together to complete a certain spec ops mission.
All in all, Modern Warfare 2 seems about average to me. It loses its straightforward campaign feel, a freshness in its formula, and suffers from a lack of dedicated servers on the PC version, an excessive amount of kill-streak rewards, and too much eye candy in the multi-player maps, etc etc etc. It does, however, keep good mechanics of a shooter, and has the nice addition of spec-ops mode. All I know is that with most shooters, even without a multi-player addition, I will play them for months and months without getting bored of them. With Modern Warfare 2, even with its multi-player and spec-ops additions, I got out of playing MW2 in less than two months. For a quarter of that time, it was because I was in the mood to play MW1 a lot more.