While certainly a step up from Modern Wafare 2, Black Ops's only saving grace is the zombies mode.
The singleplayer campaign starts out looking great, and the story itself is passable, even though it fizzles out towards its anti-climactic conclusion. The main issue with the campaign is just the way that it feels. firefights felt more like shooting galleries than chaotic battlefields, and there are really no memorable missions that you will want to go back and play simply for the fun of it, as there were in World at War. Furthermore, there are some more grotesque moments is which the player is forced to preform rather brutal acts, such as torturing a man by putting broken glass in his mouth and punching his face, and stabbing another man through the jugular (while blood gushes out). It seems as if these moments were put in just to give the game a darker or more mature tone (a rather odd choice seeing as half of the COD community are prepubescent kids) but they really don't contribute to the story at all.
Perhaps what saved this game, though, is the return of nazi (or communist, seeing as we are now in the cold war) zombies. There is really nothing more to be said about this game mode- only that it is where I spend the majority of my time.
Bottom Line
Graphics: 7/10 once again, they look worse than call of duty 4. Why would that be?
Sound: 8/10 good musical score of vietnam-ear songs and guns sound pretty good
Singleplayer: 7/10
Multiplayer: 6/10
Replayability: 8/10
Zombies: 10/10