Meh. CoD has the basic mechanic of online multiplayer down solid, but it's simple. They took the game styles that Halo created them and added a level of customization to weapons and equipment, but the game doesn't feel like it's evolved at all. It's the same as CoD 4 now, just tweaks. It's not as 'creative' as HALO when it comes to making your own game types, you're pretty restricted.
I can say that I just got bored with Black Ops, and I made a full move to Battlefield, the gameplay feels more open and more complex than CoD, you just do the same thing over and over again. Oh, fight the map, oh, kill the enemy, oh, watch that choke point that's always been there, oh, someones in the ONLY sniper spot, oh, someone's camping in the SAME corner, oh...what have you again and again and again. I hooked two hardcore CoD players (level 15 prestige players at that) into Battlefield because they simply got bored with it.
But it comes down to the same argument I always make, Halo, CoD, and Battlefield are for different types of FPS gamers:
Halo is for over the top combat with customizable gametypes, setups and basically making your games whatever you want it to be. If you want to run with rocket launchers and plasma swords at 5x speed with 1/10th grav on Sandtrap, you can set it up. You can give everybody warthogs, you can make the pistol your only weapon, you can set up everyone invisible with sniper rifles. You make the game to play.
CoD is for run and gun. Firefight gaming over the same plot of land the same way, over and over, customize your guns and your loadout, but all and all most maps play the same way every time. Same snipe spots, same camp spots, same choke-points, same firefights. If you're an avid CoD player, wheither it's Black Ops, or Modern Warfare 1&2, or even WaW, you know the maps, and you know what you have to take and hold to win a Deathmatch, you know where you have to fight to hold to win at Domination, you know the best route to capture the flag, the best way to cover the objective. There are ONLY certain ways to fight the map, and you learn them, you know the weapons and the gear you need. It's not bad, but it's Firefight gaming, small scale.
Battlefield is for Battle gaming. Big maps, destructible environments, vehicles, different classes to define the weapons and gear you can use, small squads that need to work together to garner points. You have a wide open canvas to fight a battle and seize positions or defend objectives. You can play any way you want, but it's geared towards team play in a squad. Case in point, I can play a lone wolf sniper in Battlefield, I'll do well and score about 3,000 points on a good match, get about 4-5 pins.
I play with my squad and I average about 30,000 points and 40-50 pins.
You're fighting battles, and there are many routes to take in fighting them. Yeah, it's the same terrain, but you can play on a battlefield three different times and find three different ways of approaching it. Infantry assault one time to take a position, bombard it the next time to destroy the M-Con station, or drive your armor up the third. It's much more fluid, and it forces you to think in very different ways.
In the end, every FPS game falls into one of the categories. CoD, Halo, or Battlefield, and I just don't think that 'decline' is the right term for what's happening to CoD or any of the game, I think that each style has it's following, and you're not going to see that fluctuate much unless the three 'styles' merge into something different (which I think would be a -very- bad thing).
The gamers are there, and in the end, t's the style you want to play. I have all three and enjoy them at different times. I've got my HALO games saved if I want to do them again, I love doing my DBZ game on Sandtrap with friends. I have my classes saved in Black Ops and love my AK-47 with Slight of Hand. And I have my loadouts for Recon, Assault and Engineer in Bad Company 2 memorized.
