This thread just shows the make up of the Escapist. Most of you never even played any of the PC ones and this was a PC franchise long before COD4. Maybe that shows my age too.
COD:UO is the best out of all of them and I have trouble finding people who have played it to disagree. That of course puts a very heavy bias on multiplayer. Stock CTF and Base Assault modes, amazing maps, vehicles, static and infantry anti-tank weapons, and full bipod hmg implementation made it one of the deepest "arcade" shooters I have ever played. (Still unrivaled by any game short of a Battlefield, COD: World at War tried...but fell short of COD:UO). Things in COD MP started going downhill with COD2 when they removed sprint and fire selection....and have tumbled downward ever since.
If anything I will admit that the COD2 and COD4 singleplayers were superior (I think I would go with COD2 over COD4 just from the amazing moments stuck in my mind from 2). COD4 had a few too many cut scenes and quicktime events for me. (Yes I count crawling out of a helicopter and dying of radiation exposure as a quicktime event). When you were forced back to the cliffs and the Germans had killed most your men so it was just you, a smoke grenade, and your sergeant (kept alive as a game crucial NPC)that P-51 flying in to save your butt feels less like a cut scene and more like it belonged in the game. So I will give COD2 the best SP and give COD:UO the best MP.