Hunter Broyles

Multiplayer's fine, not great but not bad either. The game play loop is solid and fast paced with a few nice tacked on mechanics that add to the game. The big draw is the ground war game mode, but it's not amazing either and get's really repetitive due to there being only two or three maps. Vehicles are either too unwieldy or just slip around like soap. Base defense and attack becomes monotonous real fast and the spawn on teammate system is wonky at best. The customization for weapons is great and offers a lot of versatility and utility to augment your play style, but its a slog to get through all the attachments. There's sights you're never gonna use, barrels and stocks that don't do much besides a small stat change and aesthetics, and a lot of repetitive under barrels that are largely interchangeable. Operators are just character models that would normally be randomly assigned in previous games. They're nothing special and you can only make minor changes to them. Campaign is a whole another story. It's good in some areas with a gritty and biting story and others it feels like it fell down and knocked all it's teeth out. It'll go from interesting action to horrific train wreck in seconds. It feels like it wants to portray horrifying warfare but most of the time comes off as trying way too hard and falls on it's face. The story starts off as CIA personnel attack a chemical weapon production site, you get then lose the gas, the the game begins. Some of the characters are pretty good; mostly Price and Farha, the rest are bland and boring cutouts. Price is a fan favorite and has some good dialogue, you don't learn too much about him. Farha is a freedom fighter running a milita in her home country, trying to repel the Russian occupational forces, she's a bit bland but has some fun moments. Alex is boring and Kyle is riddled with inconstancy, with Alex being just a sympathizer of Farha's movement and not much else to talk about. Kyle is wanting to kill terrorist one moment, then does it, then wants no hold bars fighting, gets it (Based on the player's choice), then complains about it. But then there's Barkov, the Russian general, who feels like a Saturday morning cartoon villain. You're never told why he wants what he wants, what he wants exactly besides murdering people, and how he is a high-ranking official in the Russian army. He's comically written to the point I thought it was satire, but then he goes spouting some nonsense and you have to stop and think "What are you about?". There's the Butcher and the Wolf who are just straight up terrorist, child killing and murdering included without apparent self-restraint or reflection. That's literally all there is to their characters, I'm not kidding. The game hints at one point they were freedom fighters until they crossed the line, but is never brought up again and nothing is done with it. The rest are inconsequential and serve as means to move to the next scene or exposition. The stealth sections, the areas were you breach and clear houses and compounds, and a section called "The Highway of Death" are the best parts. The highway is similar a wave defense mission where you use a high-caliber rifle to defend against wave of terrorists and Russian forces. It's pretty fun and honestly the best part of the game. Many have drawn parallel's with the real world Highway of Death in Iraq that was pretty brutal but it might just be coincidence. Then there's another mission where you play as a child trying to avoid capture that's pretty fun and interesting. The stealth levels are fun, but nothing amazing compared to the older installments. Ultimately you should just wait to buy the game when it's cheaper or skip this one entirely.