I'm more of a single-player guy. After playing multi-player games for years, it's all been pretty much the same. I can't really get enthused over many multi-player FPSs out there. There have been a few exceptions: Team Fortress 2, Red Orchestra, and BF:BC2.
TF2 got rid of a lot of the exploits of TF1 and created an incredibly balanced class system where the multi in munti-player actually has meaning: cooperative teamwork. It's not just a deathmatch - there are actually reasons for the other classes besides soldier existing. That was refreshing and I still play that game as much as I did when it came out.
RO was incredibly innovative when it came out emphasizing realism, "skill" and tactics and forgoing bullshit while a lot of mods/games went in the opposite direction (Day of Defeat, Counter-Strike). The combination of realism and good gameplay was well mixed together for the time and turned away most people who thought "skill" looked like an AWP. Another game I still play quite a bit and am looking forward to the expansion.
BF:BC2 was the first BF game I played for more than an hour since BF1942. I played BF2 and liked it on the merits that it was a BF game, but I played it over at a friend's house. Once. Never played it again. BF has always been an arcade shooter in the vein of Halo & Counter-Strike so I never took it seriously as a platform. I saw BF:BC1 and liked the idea of destructible environments, but was disappointed that it was console only. A friend of mine, who games more than the sun shines light, fervently told me to buy BF:BC2 while espousing its many virtues and innovations. So I bought it.
I like BF:BC2, but it never struck me as a great multi-player FPS. It wasn't like the first time I played DoD in the alpha days when P2s and Celerons were the norm and P3s were top-end for smug, rich assholes. BC2 feels like it's got some good mechanics but there's something missing. It essentially feels like a ported console game on PC - extremely dumbed down, simple mechanics and a class system harking back to BF1942. It does have merits: partially destructible environments, straight-forward and somewhat encouraged teamwork element, awesome vehicles (sans UAVs), good server support, smooth gameplay.
But I'm level 7(?) or 8(?), so I obviously haven't been hooked into the game at all. It just doesn't have the replay value for me. It's fun and it's the kind of game that's boring to play by yourself, so it encourages some social interaction by those who tend to see the outside world as diseased from the basement, but there are too many aspects that fall far short of expectations. You could replace every model and arena of the game and the gameplay wouldn't change. It could be Rebels versus Stormtroopers or Cops versus Robbers and nothing would be unique besides the skins. It doesn't feel like you're in a 21st century war-zone; it feels like a generic team deathmatch. There are no advantages, disadvantages or differences between the opposing factions.
CoD has been more my taste between the two. Not for the multi-player at all, but the single-player. I liked MW1 - it was a refreshing restart on the series that had been in the WW2 sphere for years. The narrative was excellent, the story was decent, voice acting was great. The only nice thing about MW2 was the variety of weapons, but for the rest of the game it was a retread of old mechanics and plot devices. The story was terrible and took a shit all over MW1. One of those "Wow, I can't believe I just wasted money on that" kind of games. Black Ops has a good story, great voice acting, a huge variety of environments and an interesting weapon catalogue. It suffers from some gameplay issues that cause the game to literally take you by the hand. I'm not against linear games or stories, but a game that forces its linearity is pretentious. It also makes it feel very console-biased as the developers apparently think every console player needs a nanny to direct the story. It suffers from cross-platform implementation, but it's already made over a billion dollars, so my complaints in that department with modern gaming can go kiss the wind. However, Black Ops still on par with MW1 and has far surpassed MW2.
