Black Ops II makes a few improvements to the Call of Duty formula, but it's not quite enough after all these years.
Cons: Same multiplayer many have tired of; Strike Force missions; Choices don't affect gameplay much; Changes to zombie mode aren't particularly interesting
It has been a little over 7 years now. 7 years of annual Call of Duty releases. 5 years since the last major step forward (Call of Duty 4). Things are understandably getting predictable. Since Call of Duty 4, the campaigns have largely remained the same, multiplayer has only received peripheral changes, and people have begun to get tired of the series. Fortunately, Treyarch realizes this and has made a push to change things up with Call of Duty Black Ops II.
Players complained about the lack of memorable characters or story elements, and Treyarch hired a big name Hollywood writer to help them pen the most memorable story yet. No, it's not really that special, but for the first time, there's a well-developed villain: Raul Menendez. You see his abrupt transformation into a villain, and from there he basically toys with you the entire game. Sure, aside from your partner Frank Woods, I couldn't name or give a crap about any of the OTHER characters, but the focused villain does lend a little oomph to the game's missions.
Treyarch also chose to attempt a branching storyline with important key decisions, which doesn't quite pan out the way you hope. The decisions are there: in addition deciding who to kill/spare, there are less obvious decisions that you may not even realize you are making, which is a nice touch. For what it's worth, the plot consequences are there too. But from a gameplay perspective, there's very little changed. I recently gave Mass Effect 3 the same criticism, but in this case, Treyarch has a giant team, a large budget, and the campaign is under 10 hours (compared to Mass Effect 3's 20+ hour campaign building off of two game's worth of decisions), so there should have been larger repercussions from my decisions.
Even more disappointing are the Strike Force missions. Players called Call of Duty shallow, and these missions are no doubt a direct response to that complaint. In these missions you swap between various units and an overhead RTS-style perspective. Instead of the typical win-or-die situation of other missions, you have a limited number of units and time with which to accomplish your objectives in any order you see fit. One death may not be the end of the mission, but there's no guarantee that you will win if your troops don't die.
Sounds pretty exciting right? Well, if brain-dead teammates and cheap enemy spawns are your idea of exciting, then yes! Strike Force missions quickly become an exercise in micromanagement, since you have to babysit soldiers who will otherwise get themselves killed with haste. And given the non-linear nature of the levels, the developers have no qualms about spawning enemies behind you. And in unreasonably large waves too! These missions are a mess, and while they are optional, you have to endure them in order to get the best ending, so for many, they might as well be required.
The rest of the campaign plays as you'd expect it to, with cover-based shooting, and tight scripting. What you may not notice is how the levels have actually opened up slightly in Black Ops II, though. Sure, your average corridor-shooting level still makes its appearance, but there are now just about as many slightly larger arenas. You are actually given opportunities to flank the enemy (albeit not much else). Again, like the efforts in storytelling, these wider levels don't revolutionize the game, but they help make it one of the better campaigns, if only slightly.
While the campaign has seen some significant overhauls, the multiplayer is roughly the same as it ever was. There have been two changes since the last two games in this respect: 1) a bigger focus on the eSports community with balance tweaks and CODCasting, and 2) a minor revision to class creation.
The first change probably won't mean much to most people, but since eSports players tend to be picky about balance, I can only imagine everyone will reap the benefits. As for class creation in Black Ops II, it's largely the same as ever: pick your weapons and perks, which are purchased with tokens, following in the original Black Op's purchasing system. Now you have 10 slots for ANYTHING you want in a class, whether it be perks, guns, attachments, etc. This is an exaggeration mind you, as you still must pick two weapons, a grenade, and three perks, thereby taking up 6 of your slots already. Still, you get to choose the last 4 a little more openly than before, which is cool. Beyond that, multiplayer is the same as ever, which is both a good thing (the formula is solid), and a bad thing (at this point, there are 6 games, each across 4 platforms without significant differences).
Zombie mode also makes a return, for those who enjoyed it before. As always you survive waves of zombies as long as you can, either solo or with a group of friends. The new tranzit mode adds a bus that takes you from location to location as you please, but beyond that, it's the same as always, and still pretty boring in my opinion. Now, I'm sure that some people who liked the mode before may enjoy it, but honestly it just struck me as repetitive more than anything.
In the end, Black Ops II is still largely more of the same. The campaign has seen some minor improvements across the board, but multiplayer and zombies are largely unchanged. This isn't the game that will reignite anyone's passion for the series if it died out. However, what remains is a moderately enjoyable, albeit highly predictable popcorn game that ought to provide just what the yearly fans want. Everyone else can pass, though, as we wait for Treyarch to REALLY change things up.