You really need to have played MW2 to understand any of what's going on in MW3, but I'd say it's slightly less essential to have played COD4 before MW2 - as long as you remember basically who Price, Soap and Zakhaev are, you'll be alright.

I am actually going to ignore the CoD story as much as possible, since I don't think of story to be an important (or very relevant) aspect of gameplay at all, though I do find that elements of the story seem to be based on shock value to be annoying.

Yes. Exactly.

If you're a hipster you're allowed to like Call of Duty ironically, but if your k/d rises above 0.25 your friends will assume you're playing seriously and give you back your man card.

As much as what you say is true, how many CoD clones have you seen really take off? Games have been trying to use the forumla introduced by Halo, but the only FPS franchise doing better than Halo is CoD. Granted, a lot of shooters use CoD mechanics for shooting but they bring their own gimmicks to the table.

What were you expecting, a scientific analysis? Aren't the people who hate CoD to begin with only expressing their opinion? This article is no less valid for being an opinion, especially since it's not an opinion that's provably wrong.

The multiplayer might run the risk of being the same game with minor adjustments and nicer graphics, but as far as multipalyer shooters go MW2 was already pretty refined. apart from balance issues, what were they going to chance, exactly?

You mean it's exciting, fast paced, and has an interesting if not overly complex story? Well, it's no Citizen Kane, I grant you.

This isn't unexpected. All the butthurt people are scurrying here to be super-nonchalant. It's like trolling someone then signing off with 'u mad?'. No one gonna admit they mad.

I assume you're only referring to the multiplayer which is more or less exactly like MW2 with new maps (and a few tweaks and nerfs here and there). The campaign (apart from completely new settings and a continuation of the storyline from MW2) has a lot of interesting stuff going on in it, gameplay wise.

Yeah, spawns are poor and quickscoping is stupidly common - it's like they increased aim assist for it instead of nerfing it.

I admire your nerve Luke, because all the people who are persistent enough to keep hating Call of Duty on the basis of being popular (and all the made-up reasons they think are legitimate reasons to hate it) are going to be too stubborn to change their minds now.

Just like how Budweiser have the best ads but their beer is still shit.

Apparently it's Dwight Howard, centre for the Orlando Magic.

True, I was expecting to be bombarded with advertising between BF3 launching and MW3 launching, with Activision determined to make everyone forget BF3 happened. This trickle of information is kind of surprising. And nice.

I personally only want MW3 to see how the story ends, not because I have any confidence it will be any good (though I hope it is). Though, if I get half of much time out of the multiplayer as I got out of MW2, then I'll still consider it money well spent.

Kinda short, I hope there's a longer version that's more comparable to the Black Ops trailer.

The Dig is among the greatest games ever made, and as far as point n click adventure games go, it is the finest example of the genre I have ever seen.

You have far too much faith in humanity.

Has anyone really been saying that, or are they just saying Washington as a shortcut to "the GTA universe parody of Washington"?