Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Don't believe the hype"

The new COD comes at us with no noticeable upgrades in graphics or gameplay dynamics , a fragmented story that has even less flow that the first Black Ops game and far to many cutscenes during the single player campaign .

Whoever came up with the idea for Strike Force Missions was working on the wrong game. I personally HATE Ghost Recon style games - playing lemmings with my toy soldiers is not my idea of a great FPS - and that's what COD is supposed to be - THE FPS. Turning it into a unit based Ghost Recon style game was the worst move ever - ever. Still - it was when I first started riding that hideously rendered horse and had that black plastic bag flapping in my face ( i hear it was supposed to be the horses mane) that I was truly horrified at the lack of effort that went into this release. When I started firing rockets off it's back at helicopters I had to wonder who the frik actually comes up with this stuff?

The single player campaign failed to excite me at any point - and as far as difficulty level goes - I played this through on Veteran and it was a joke. Compared to the other COD titles this is by far the easiest one to complete.
the online multiplayer - when it's working - is fine. It's the real reason we all bought this game after all. Sadly there seems to be some major hiccups that still need to be worked out here .. with less than 1/2 of the traffic of other COD titles it makes no sense why the servers keep bogging down .. and for some reason you can only access a third of the maps in any game mode. I played hours of team deathmatch and only got to play the same five maps over and over and over .. it is by far the one thing I heard people comment about the most .. " when do we get to play another map? I thought there was 14 of them? "
the multiplayer breaks no new ground . I will give a big thumbs up to the multiplayer level design in Blops2 ... the longer they keep making these games the better then multiplayer levels get. Still - nothing new in the way of interacting with the environment or graphics upgrades - but it doesn't really matter as long as you can still blast Johnny Whoever online or stick his little brother with a semtex.
i would recommend to players to wait a few weeks to buy this game .. with all the COD titles available to play there is no reason to shell out top dollar to get in on this one while it's still in glitch mode. Wait a while and pick this up when it gets a little cheaper and is actually worth the price.

this is still a good game .. but it's time for these guys to put some real effort into designing these games. Black Ops 2 comes across as cheesy and loaded with gimmicks whereas all the players want is an epic FPS filled with difficult enemies and tricky situations .. instead we got Oliver North and Sticky Gloves. great.

to be fair - those who like the strike force missions will probably find them a great addition - they do indeed add a whole new dynamic to the gameplay .. just not one that I happen to like .. at all.

after months of playing this game I have to say this - WITHOUT A DOUBT THIS VERSION OF COD IS THE WORST FOR ONLINE GAMEPLAY .. IF THE HOST DOESN'T SWITCH UP 100 TIMES A MATCH THEN CHANCES ARE THE ROUND WILL JUST END DUE TO A SERVER CONNECTION FAILURE. HOW THEY MANAGE TO GET WORSE AT THE ONLINE THING IS A MYSTERY ... AND A REAL SHAME. I NEVER HAD ISSUES WITH THE ONLINE PLAY IN BLACK OPS 1 OR ANY OF THE MODERN WARFARE TITLES - SO WHY IS BLACK OPS TWO LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE HALF THE TIME .. NO REALLY - I CAN'T EVEN LOG ON BECAUSE THE SERVICE IS DOWN RIGHT NOW .. LIKE IT IS AT SOME POINT ALMOST EVERY SINGLE DAY.

THERE'S O POINT IN EVEN TRYING TO PLAY ONLINE IF EVERY SINGLE ROUND IS INTERRUPTED OR CUT SHORT ... SERIOUSLY ... LAMEST ONLINE.