I'm a frequent member of the 20 dollar club. It's about all I'm willing to risk on a game. The only two games I feel comfortable purchasing at full price would be Fable and Assassin Creed. The reason being is I absolutely love the Fables and the Assassin Creed's gameplay is always improving. The story is another story but you can't win them all. My brother who is more willing to buy new games usually stays in the realm of Sports games save for the Call of Duty franchise. As such when the game was dropped he bought it and because it was his day to be with his chick I played it.
Single Player- The single player story starts with a man being strapped to a chair. That man is you. Mason. The following story takes you to Russia, Cuba, and Vietnam. The story itself is a small bit of a let down. It's now because it's not good it's just the way they choose to expose it is sort of lame. The game play at times can be tedious if not down right stupid. You are never alone but your team AI is so terrible that they allow any foe to come straight up to you and knock you in the back in which you quickly die though your team of four is right around you and should have been capable of shooting the person. In the end the game graphics are indeed some of the prettiest I have seen though I did notice a lack of gore which is odd as I turned the gore on and got less of it than I did in Call of Duty World at War the last game that this developer did. A semi terrible story and regular tedious unimproved guns caused me to be happy when this was over. Of course what you unlock after beating the game is perhaps what makes doing so worth it. I'll give this hint Zombies!
Multiplayer- The COD games are generally not bought for the single player campaigns and are geared toward those who love to online game. Rejoice for now there is no way to hack into the system to do anything which would mess with the control of the game play. The online game is not a sit and wait game. It's very much an open fast run and gun mutliplayer situation. The levels unlock you guns but this time the guns don't just get unlocked. You have to purchase them with points you earn. The Killstreaks are less than stellar with the overused RDX cars eventually coming out of every hole you could find to blow someone up. The care packages rarely give you something aside from ammo or spyplane. It's a very underwhelming experience. The most time I've spent on the game is a round thirty minutes to create my emblem which is a very addicting building process. Extensive and very time consuming if you don't know what weapons you want the mutliplayer only offers a hacker free game and doesn't deliver anything truly fun or new. Unless your a huge huge huge fan of the line to be sort of a blind follower you'll take this game in small doses.
In all I give this game a 70% this is not what I suspect from the COD game and it's one that I wish we rented instead of owning.