Once more into the scandalous aggregation something-or-other, this time with Modern Warfare 3, which looks to be coming up red (but not roses) for players rating the game just hours after picking it up. While the Xbox 360 version’s already garnered a critically acclaimed 90 out of 100 on Metacritic with 30 critics weighing in, the average user score’s hovering closer to 3 out of 10. Ouch.
And it’s downhill from there: The PlayStation 3 version ranks 88 out of 100 with nine critics weighing in, but its average user score is 2.4 out of 10 with 75 users voting. The PC version—currently (shamefully?) unrated by a single professional critic—lists a user score of 1.4 out of 10 with 113 users voting.
What’s the beef? Assuming these are serious reactions from actual players, not trolls, the complaints sound similar to many of the complaints leveled at Call of Duty Black Ops, basically same-ol’-same-ol’.
“The funny thing is I had yet to realize this was the exact same game I’ve been playing for two years,” writes one user of the Xbox version. “New multiplayer modes? Yeah, there are a bunch, none of them interesting [though]. How about the singleplayer? Same washed up Michael Bay on steroids you would expect from a Call of Duty game nowadays. Where are the good old days where good gameplay was defined by skill, and not the ridiculous amount of over the top killstreak rewards and perks someone can have? This game, no, this franchise is scarred and beyond repair… A waste of my money.”
“Have been playing MW3 online for a few hours now and it surprised me that a game I wasn’t looking forward to, at all, still was able to… disappoint me,” writes another user. “Have seen many of the maps and I haven’t felt a presence of a classic map. Running makes you wiggle like a drunk duck, reloading is much quicker than switching weapons.”
“Could Activision be any greedier? Charging full price for an mw2 expansion pack!” writes a third. “The only good thing about this horrible rip off are the new spec ops missions. If you’re a mindless 12yr old and want to show off you’re l33t skillz to other mindless 12 yr olds then this is the game for you. Otherwise avoid this re-heated garbage at all costs.”
Fear not, those of you who measure a game’s worth according to its sales numbers: Black Ops went on to record sales anyway.
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