I finally got around to playing through Medal of Honor: Warfighter and here are a few thoughts I had, especially for those who are into the genre:

1. The "peek and lean" function—which Warfighter does really well—is easily is coolest new thing in shooters, and for me it has really raised the bar. Medal of Honor has ruined me and I will never fully enjoy another FPS that doesn't have peek and lean. COD Ghosts included such a watered-down, lazily designed excuse for peek and lean that they would have been better off just leaving it out.

2. Smarter enemies, destructible environments, realistic selective-fire options, and getting ammo from friendly computer players are all nice little touches that make MOHWF's campaign instantly ten times better than COD. Although I realize I come at the modern FPS's with an old-fashioned perspective: I expect that a $50+ game includes a decent, replayable story mode instead of the same predictable clichéd linear gameplay repackaged over and over again.

3. I would like to see a cross between Splinter Cell's stealth/intelligent enemies, Halo's cooperative vehicle combat, Medal of Honor's peek and lean, Rainbow Six's team-building/design, Call of Duty's loadout customization, and Freedom Fighters' system for commanding AI's/open-ended, nonlinear gameplay. Is that really so much to ask?

4. Warfighter's plot was still pretty vanilla, but it was interesting that they included—albeit only via the cutscenes—a story about one of the soldier's family. At the end there's this really sentimental conclusion of that story arc. But then there's this overtly patriotic message on screen about heroism, sacrifice, etc, which I found to be sort of out of place.

I guess to me it conflated the simulated, entertainment-oriented violence of the video game with actual warfare, and I found it a bit creepy. I wouldn't go as far as to call it socially irresponsible or anything, but if I made a game like that, I would think it sort of in bad taste to blur the line between video games and real violence. And at the same time, I—like everyone else—want the gameplay to continue becoming more realistic. I wonder what that says about me.