While I'm happy about these changes, I have some things to add.
While I love the knife, perhaps it should work differently. Not auto-lock-on, but still situational. If the enemy is in your face, you slash. If they're farther away, you try to stab, and if you run at them, you effectively knife lunge them. I think damage should be locational, as well. A slash to the throat, or face = death. A stab to the chest = death, whereas a slash to the chest, requires two before your opponent dies, punishing you, rather than rewarding you, for getting too close to your enemy. Because, before, getting point blank allowed you to slash your opponent, rather than stab, making their death nigh-instant, and your recovery faster. Hitting them in the limbs, will kill them in about four tries. Three for stabs. This means that stabbing someone in the back, or chest, or head will kill them. Slashing someone's throat, or face, will put them down, as well. But dropping to the floor while slashing the guy's ankle, will get you a double-aught buckshot shell to the ass.
I think actual character customization, even within lame limits, like in Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, would be awesome. Especially if, like in said game, the amount of armor you're wearing tips the balance on your speed versus protection scale. Also: balaclavas, ghille suits, stealth suits, gas masks.
Even just being able to choose from a list of models with several variations for each "class/role", like the models from MW2 would be peachy. That way I can have a ghille suit for the sniper, stealth suits (the non-ghille sniper skins) for my stealthy guys, and riot gear for my shotgun troop.
And maybe being able to have some lame shotguns as sidearms would be nice. Like a questionably effective double-barreled sawed-off, like the Ranger; and maybe a Maverick 88, or something like that, when you get higher level. I don't think letting people have shotguns for sidearms, period, is a bad idea; I just think letting them have guns-akimbo shotguns, AA-12s, Strykers, and pump-action shotguns that only snipe people when you're not the one trying to use them, is.
Also, perhaps make it so that they don't have an uncanny range cap, beyond which the pellets simply disappear, and make it so that they can peg you from across the map; but shotgun's pellet spread, combined with the damage dropping off of a cliff, keeping them balanced. And making the very accurate double-barreled shotgun actually worth using. Seriously, Treyarc. What the fuck am I supposed to do with a shotgun that's so accurate that it isn't effective at shotgun range, but the shotguns have an arbitrary range cap, so I can't go man hunting!? Yeah, I might get lucky and hit (Read: not kill) someone from about fifteen feet away, but that's not good enough. I should be able to ten damage a sniper to death by peppering him repeatedly, like in a Bad Company game; and if I'm equal parts lucky and skilled enough, get a headshot from insane distance, and one-shot them with a bloody shotgun.
And maybe make it so that steady aim (If it's still in) pro, makes it so that spread is slightly decreased even while you're aiming down sights, and maybe make your hands steady when you're using sniper rifles, making it easier to get kills without holding breath, or when you're using an ACOG. On a related note, maybe make it so that we can choose the reticule for our ACOG, and even choose to have it be un-powered, and simply be an assault scope.
And perhaps make it so that people can have sidearms as primaries, with extra spawning ammo, but not vice-versa. I always wanted to have a riot trooper skin, with a SPAS-12 primary, and 92F secondary. And maybe put some more work into different sidearms, yeah? Diversity in primaries is required, but diversity in sidearms would kick ass. Treyarc took it in the right direction with being able to have a bloody crossbow that fires explosives as a sidearm. Perhaps you could one-up them by having a crossbow with attachment options, one of which is explosive bolts, that could also be used on the primary slot (But not both at the same time. Same goes for if you allow secondaries as primary: You can't have the same gun twice, even with different attachments; just like with Overkill in CoD4.)?
Let's hope MW3 takes the franchise back to it's golden age.
