Some impressions from a Treyarch fanboy and someone who used to play competitive CoD:
Pros
- Good map design for the most part. I like how players can now interact with the map (like close doors) and how maps are different in different game types (big maps become smaller in Wager Matches).
- Balanced perks/killstreaks. Despite what people say about the RC Car, 1) it's not even a guaranteed kill 2) player is completely vulnerable during the duration of the killstreak, 3) it is one of the best anti-camping tools in the game, 4) it can be shot down, 5) it is countered by flack jacket, and 6) UAV gives a much higher probability for more team kills than the RC Car.
- Interesting new additions to the game (Wager Matches, new zombie modes + minigame, new mechanics on killstreak interaction, many easter eggs)
- Decision to make the game anti-noob, anti-annoying, and anti-camper by removing abusable things.
- Less aim-assist.
Cons (overall there's a pretty massive list)
- Horrible, HORRIBLE spawn system. Is it worse than MW2 or other iterations? Maybe not. I've seen equally bad spawns in MW2 and I believe spawning was patched in 4/5 as well. However, several times per game I can't walk five steps from my spawn without encountering an enemy. I've never been shot in the back so many times before.
- Guns are unbelievably weak. What's most frustrating about this is that ARs are unbelievably strong in comparison to the other classes. Snipers were toned down (can't really do offensive rush sniping anymore). Shotguns were toned down (only excel at near knife range). SMGs were toned down (not even great CQC weapons anymore; they are either too weak or have too high of a recoil at too close of a range). LMGs aren't too bad so far IMO, but I have rarely used them. But anyway- guns (mainly SMGs) are so weak that if a person is still several feet from a corner, I'm scared to shoot at them because they'll get away and I'll give up my position. I've never had this problem in previous CoDs. Also, even at close range SMGs are losing to ARs. If this were to be the case, why even put SMGs in the game? They are not significantly better at CQC than ARs. It's debatable as to whether they're even better at all in CQC.
- If you're going to be "anti-camping" then at least fully commit to it by having SMGs be the strongest weapon class (like in WaW). If SMGs are strongest, then you promote running and gunning. If ARs are the strongest, it's perfectly feasible to just hole yourself up somewhere with a long (or short) range of sight and completely dominate any range.
-Netcode also needs work. Bad lag in this game is less noticeable up until the game starts to stutter, but more rage-inducing because you never know when you'll lose a gun-battle where you have a complete advantage just because you're lagging.
- Snipers are not very fun right now. I would rather not like to hide somewhere in a bush just so I can have time to position my scope and shoot a guy. I'm more of a "we see each other at the same time" kind of guy and I'll duck under the window frame, peak my head up, aim, and shoot, then repeat until the guy is dead. This is made much harder with the whole anti-quickscoping movement. It's much less annoying to get quickscoped by someone who scoped in, saw me, and then shot, than someone who's hiding in a bush and shooting my in the back when I run past their ghost pro body.
