Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

I brought the Hardened Edition and that is what I am going to review.

-- Packaging --
I was quite surprised by the size of the box it came in, I was expecting something a little slimmer based on the contents (a card and a mini field guide) but everything had its own area and fitted perfectly (Although I found the field guide to a bit tough to get back in once I got it out). Overall I am happy with the contents and the packaging.

-- Game Manual --
This is just a tiny little issue that I have with some games released these days, including this one. the games manual is literally 10 pages long and most of that is credits. When I think manual I imagine a little booklet containing colourful images and illustrations showing the various controls and perhaps even a back story and profiles of some of the characters but no, this is the bare minimum of what you can call a manual, the instructions is just a white box with the various icons on it such as grenade, ammo etc. Was it really too much effort to at least show what it actually looks like IN GAME??

-- The Game --
The campaign I found moderately enjoyable but I felt that something was missing and that something was a little variety every now and then, the previous games had levels which had you in control of a gunship, on a speed boat, sneaking through snow and whatnot but. Don't get me wrong MW3 has some of these things but they are more bite sized and they are over way too quickly. But I still loved the game I found it enjoyable to control some of the guns and airships brief as it was.

The game took me around 6 hrs to complete and that includes back tracking to get some of the intel and level specific achievements which I guess is ok for Call of Duty since most people will spend literally months of game time in the space of a year, so as game time goes MW3 is a bargain.

-- The Online --
I found the online to be very enjoyable, I tend to stick to team deathmatch and very rarely venture elsewhere however I discovered Kill Confirmed which is basically team deathmatch but instead of earning points towards goals for kills, you earn for getting kills and then picking up the tag the players dropped. This makes for a more strategic match since you can confirm your teams kills and deny other kills made by your opponents which is already mildly amusing.

-- Spec Ops --
There are two modes here, Missions and Survival. I'm not going into detail about these, its very similar to what we see on MW2 however the survival is a LITTLE like Zombies from Black Ops and World at World. Basically in survival you choose a map (which are the online maps) and then kill the various waves of enemies, it starts out easy at first but the enemies quickly becomes tougher to kill and deal more damage, plus with dogs and choppers flying around it makes for quite a fun game.

-- Overall --
Overall I like the game, I really do, I found the single player to be fun and enjoyable, the online is great and the spec ops are good too as a little thing to do while your bored. However its small things that made me give the game only 4 stars such as the manual and lack of variety in the single player but the main reason is simply because this is basically the direct sequel to MW2 and I found the game a little too similar (don't get me wrong, I like that they kept the gameplay and visuals the same) but I feel that there is a lack of NEW features so for me its 5 Stars for fun but 4 Stars overall.

Thank you for reading and I hope my spelling and grammar wasn't too bad :P

Ok so this game has been out for less than a week, therefor there are going to be a few issues that need to be ironed out, but not very impressed with it yet.
I'm a huge CoD fan. I thought CoD4 was the best game of the series, WoW wasn't any good, MW2 was very good, and BO was terrible. But I can't see any real improvement from MW2 in this game. Slightly better graphics, but thats it.

I'm getting a load of "lag" online, not the jerky kind of lag, the kind of lag were, it runs smoothly but your actually a milisecond behind so when you spot someone they've already seen you and started shooting before you can react, kind of lag.
Theres too much stuff going on in the air, there constantly a helicopter or something up there, and no one shoots them down. Very annoying.

In the online co-op mode, I can't join any games, it just loads for 20 minutes and won't enter me into a game, and I was looking forward to co-op survival mode. :(

Single player mode is VERY short, it looks like they just threw it in there for the sake of having a single player campaign. I completed it in around 4hrs, maybe less. (Not on easy)

The hardened edition isn't very special, an oversived cardboard box really. The elite isn't working with me, I don't know if it's a server thing or just me but they need to get that fixed, considering I paid extra for it. Hopefully that will get fixed soon.

Overall I'm disapointed with the game. I don't think it's going to be a case of getting used to the online play style, it is so much more run and gun compared to MW and MW2, also I have not found a single decent place to snipe from, so I think they killed off sniping completely which is a shame in my opinion.

But thats just me.

Alot was expected from this game, in my opinion it has delivered. Let me start with the multi-player. The maps are great fun and there are many. Personal favourites of mine are Resistance, Bootleg, Lockdown and Hardhat. I personally find this maps the most fun, although there are alot of other ones. The array of guns, perks and unlcocks are vast. Moving onto the Special ops, you can choose from Survival or Missons. Survival is comparable to Zombies from previous games, or Horde from Gears of War. You fight endless waves, similar to zombies, but youre fighting human soldiers. Similar to Gears you actually get boss levels now. The boss levels are Juggernauts, although there are some levels you fight against Helicopters, you can usually take these down with a few clips of an MP5. In the mission levels they are what they say on the tin, you have to meet an objective successfully. Typically, the Story mode is too short, as it normally is. I wont spoil the story for the player, but it is a very fun and interesting story with its usually twists and turns. Elite is a good app you can download to your console, also access it via your computer. I look forward to the new map pack downloads that we will soon be getting, as normally there are some brilliant new maps. The gameplay is typical COD. It hasnt changed much, it doesnt need to, same with the graphics. Hope this helps!