Boring campaign, fun, albeit frustrating, multiplayer.
Campaign
Were you expecting a compelling, innovative, and non-jingoistic plot? Why? What the hell is wrong with you? The Black Ops 2 campaign features David Mason, son of Alex Mason (numerology enthusiast), from the original Black Ops.
The game presents a mixture of missions set in the Cold War Era and in the not-too-distant future. The Cold War Era missions are framed by the reminiscent profanity expert, Frank Woods, who is also David's uncle. They serve to reveal that Raul Menendez, a radical terrorist, is a bad guy. But he also loved his sister, who was burned in a fire, so it's also really deep and sad and stuff. The game forces you to realize this as you go on a machete-swinging rampage, decapitating any random passers-by and otherwise well-armed men. Meanwhile, you trudge through missions, killing people for...reasons. As David Mason, your job is to utilize Woods's stories to gain information about Menendez and try to thwart his typical doomsday plot. There are various junctures in the game where your actions can result in different endings. Peter Molyneux approves.
Black Ops 2 also features "Strike Force" missions, which are somewhat like tower defense mini-games. You're able to command various unit types, like dragonfire drones, AGRs, and infantry units. You can command them from a real-time satellite map, which affords a view of the area at large, as well as showing enemy positions. At any time, you can take control of individual units and play from first-person perspective. It's an interesting idea, but sometimes, the units don't seem to follow commands issued, or they take their time about it. While you might think those missions would require strategic thinking and proper unit compositions, it's really not the case. You basically order all units to one objective, then to the next, and the next, and then win. There's only one mission that's slightly difficult. You're required to protect an envoy of trucks with supplies. You need to be active with the dragonfire drones as well as taking out tanks with large bombs you can call in. Hey, maybe we should go play XCOM instead. You bring the game, I'll bring the beer. Where was I?
Ah yes, well, there's not much else to say. The plot is inane, the dialogue is inept and contrived, and--oh, you already turned on multiplayer? Understood.
Multiplayer
The reason you buy these games. If the default set of MW3 maps made you want to vomit, Black Ops 2 definitely delivers better in that regard, for the most part. There are still maps that make me very sad (looking at you, Carrier). If the lag compensation in MW3 made you want to shoot a kamehameha blast through your TV in blind fury, Black Ops 2 delivers maximum frustration. Lag comp is back and in full force. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself though.
Black Ops 2 multiplayer now features league play, which is a ladder system. Your wins and losses affect your league placement. In the "Moshpit series" in league play, you get matched up with similarly placed players and play a random team game type. So, you get an individual rank by playing team games...hmm. (Maybe I'm missing something here?) Good luck with the lag in these matches, by the way.
If you're not into laddering, there's still the traditional public matches, where you gain XP and unlock stuff. In Black Ops 2, you customize load-outs via a 10-point-allocation system. Equipping perks, your primary, secondary, grenades, etc. costs a point. You can also use points to equip wildcards, which allow you to do things like use two perks in the same tier or add an additional attachment on your weapon(s). However, there are no pro versions of perks anymore.
Did you like hearing foot steps in MW3? Well, even if you were crazy enough to not use SitRep Pro, you could still hear foot steps. However, in Black Ops 2, everyone glides around like ninjas with slippers on. If they don't want sound whoring in their game, that's fine, but don't bother putting in perks like "Awareness" or "Dead Silence," because they do nothing for you at all, and thus aren't even competitive with other perks.
The sounds of the guns themselves seems greatly improved from the first Black Ops. The guns in Black Ops always sounded like toy pellet guns to me. Guns in Black Ops 2 have a more "beefy" sound, adding to the visceral feel of wielding the weapons.
Still no respawn timer in domination. :(
Spawns in FFA are nearly as bad as MW3 on some maps.
Kill confirmed makes a return in Black Ops 2.
Party Games are in Black Ops 2. You'll recognize most from Black Ops 1: like "One in the Chamber," "Sticks and Stones," and the "Gun Game." Did you like the concept of wager matches in Black Ops? Well **** off, Treyarch more or less says; it's no longer available.
In lieu of kill streaks or point streaks, Black Ops 2 features score streaks. You must obtain a certain accumulation of score points to unlock your streaks. Thus, sitting in a dark corner in kill confirmed will take you seven kills to get a UAV, while accumulating tags for each kill would only require three. So now, you will see plenty of people sprinting around for tags--often, they grab tags off the guy you just killed and are inches away from collecting yourself. You can cycle through all your streaks with the D-Pad, but streaks don't stack, so be sure to use them, as you continue to cycle through all your streaks without dying.
The various score streaks themselves are pretty interesting. The predator and air strike are back, albeit in slightly modified fashion. You'll also be glad to know blackbird is back, in the form of Orbital VSAT, as well as dogs.
Overall, it's the same multiplayer experience that everyone knows and loves/hates. It's very addictive and frustrating at the same time. It's always nice to have COD laying around when you're waiting for the next good game to drop.