Black Ops, to play or not to play?

To play for campaign and not to play for multiplayer.

nah, they are good..... i say this with a catch...

they have a good storyline, the weapons and dynamics are cool...

BUT the multiplayer is broken. they used the same stuff as mw2 for multiplayer. thus, spawns are broken and smgs are all that is used.

it has cool things like decoy grenades, a grenade that fires blanks for 15 seconds so you can lure enemies elsewhere, and spy cameras, which can be seen by the enemy and tampered with or avoided but if not seen is an awesome tool, an rc car with a bomb and a uav-without-delays and a 4chaimber rpg as kill streaks. none of this matters since they nerfed explosives and sniper rifles and kept smgs stronger than lmgs and assault rifles at every range.

bottom line, if you left mw2 cuz of nooby stuff and came to MNC, then just rent black ops for its campaign. i will. but i knew black ops would suck on multiplayer. didnt buy it. if i was wrong i would have got it. when it goes down in price, i might still get it and occasionally play private matches without smgs. right now, id rather have mnc dlc, followed by ssf4, then gh6, then fallout:nv.

It's because(like most games), they're rather popular amongst adolescents and younger folks. They're(CoD/Halo/Gears) easily the most popular franchises on 360, so they make easy targets.

Personally, I have no issues hating on the easy targets nor do I have a problem admitting that I've had a mild bit of interest in Reach or Gears of War 3. But that's just me, and I'm pretty damn weird anyways.

Asides from the storyline, that's always the impression I've gotten. I've had several friends tell me about their overpowered custom or troll classes it's almost been enough to persuade me to rent one of the games.

...The story doesn't actually suck though? Really? I just always assumed it would seeing as how Call of Duty has become the Madden of FPSes in many ways.

I'm looking forward to playing Black Ops. It's got tremendous production value and very deep set of features. It's silly to hate a game because it's popular but thats just human nature for some people to rebel against the big dogs. The game sold 5.6 million units on ONE DAY. That is just insane!

Enthusiasm is nice and all, but I don't think popularity of something has any bearing on how good it is.

MNC is the 30th amongst most popular XBLA titles unless I misinterpreted how the Markatplace is. I don't think that makes a difference on how good it is.

Every Call of Duty, Halo, or Gears of War game is always #1 when it's released. Doesn't make a difference to me either

It's popular and continues to be popular because of how good it is. Gamers aren't dumb and all the marketing money in the world can't save a bad game. You might not personally like it but don't discount the Herculean amount of effort it takes to make a game this good.

I can't agree. Even without arguing of the subjectiveness of just what "good" is, something being good doesn't automatically make it popular nor does something being popular make it good.

Of course my dislike of something has no bearing on what someone else thinks of it...The same way that other people liking it have no bearing on whether or not I think it's good

I've been a pretty big CoD fan since CoD2 and I have to say this is the best and most balanced CoD since CoD2 IMO. Treyarch did a great job with this one, I always liked their verison of CoD. I'd liked WaW more than CoD4 actually.

Black ops is primarily a SMG/Assault rifle game of course. With the quick scoping nerf, sniping is pretty much dead in this CoD, they aren't really any big maps to tend to a campy type of sniping.

I'm so glad explosives have been toned down and that the guns actually have recoil now, unlock MW2 which was way to casual of a game. The fact that stopping power has been removed is great. It actually takes a good amount of bullets to take someone down, and you can actually run away from gun fights. Also loving the customization and the theater mode.

I also started the campaign the other night and it has been one of the best I've played thus far.

oddly enough I played black ops last night
I had no intention to do so but a fried brought it over and I couldn't turn him down.

It honestly was not as bad as I expected it to be, despite a lot of camping as per usual.

I managed to pull off an mvp 18-8 game while getting not only a triple flamethrower spray down but also a long range tomahawk kill.

Would I play the multiplayer again? sure! the flamethrower is freakin hilarious.
Would I spend 60 bucks on it? Nah.

I'll agree that the campaign has high-production values and is worth playing (as a rental), but the game is mostly popular for the multiplayer, which is abysmal. It's popular because it has a low skill-ceiling.

You guys know how the average player tends to go Assassin and then proceed to facestab Tanks and run into Assault charges over and over? That's because they don't learn from their mistakes, which is a problem if you're playing something like MNC, but the issue is significantly reduced when battles revolve around nothing but getting the drop on someone.

I've got to point this out for anyone wanting black ops for the zombie mode. yes its back obviously and yes its harder. But my favorite addition is once you beat the campaign(or use the code 3arc unlock) you get a special level called "five". Its the pentagon and you get to play as JFK, Nixon, The secretary of defense, And (for some reason) Fidel Castro

I also love how they took out stopping power. It was essentially, in MW1 and MW2, if you didn't take stopping power you were going to lose face to face gun fights, and anyone who was doing well was using a build with stopping power.

Now its actually "Who can control their weapon to place more bullets in the other player"

You actually have to be accurate with the sniper rifle, and I think the variable zoom scope is a nifty attachment.

I kind of like the CoD cash system, but I hate it too. I burnt $3k on the m60 and its grip, and it still kicks like a goddamn mule. Powerful though!

At first, I didn't like the multiplayer but its growing on me. Still hate Napalm strikes, though.

Campaign was pretty good. Not as intense as MW1's, which out of MW1, 2, and BO, is still my fav.