without snipers i would never have had the moment of awesome defending Oasis in Bad Company today. i was a demolition guy and taking some serious semi-auto sniper fire from a direction i couldn't figure out, i kept moving around but eventually i died from too many hits. i respawned as a sniper with a bolt-action rifle and figured out there was an enemy sniper nest in the trees and bushes behind our base. i started methodically working them over, taking one hit that reduced my health to 10% and making the screen all red and harder to see in, yet i picked off a total of 5 enemy snipers (two of them were respawns on their squadmate), all with headshots. what a waste of their dwindling lives...
sniping in general is a core component of FPS games, it does get annoying when a fight turns into a lame sniper duel and you can't do anything except sit and hide somewhere hoping not to get shot, or else some noob runs around quick-scoping and getting cheap kills thanks to exploiting game mechanics, this is not how snipers operate. but i would not have it taken out, destroying camping snipers who suck when the game gets real is too much fun.