Similar to what I did with Battlefield 3, I’m going to save most of my comments for the full review, which should be complete by Monday. That said, here are three lists of five – What I love, what I hate and what the jury is still out on:

Five Things I Love

– The reward system is great. It plays to the strength of the player and makes itself flexible for people who enjoy a variety of game modes.
– The maps are a lot of fun. The Call of Duty series is about being fast-paced and these maps encourage that type of gameplay very well.
– The campaign. It has a lot of excitement, you’ve been invested in the characters since the first Modern Warfare, and keeps the action moving very well.
– The perks. These are actually useful (which hasn’t been the case in past games, if you ask me) and leave me torn on which ones I want to use more.
– Spec Ops. If you thought you were going to miss having a new Zombies mode, you’ll quickly change your tune.

Five Things I Hate

– Connection problems. I hate being dropped from games that are in the middle or near completion.
– Spawn points. This is always a problem with FPS games, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying to be spawned right in front of an enemy player or have one spawn right behind you.
– Hit detection. It still lacks consistency. On more than one occasion, I point-blank shot someone in the head with a shotgun and they lived and killed me.
– Quickscoping. It’s stupid and should have been left out of the game. It’s a distraction for players who are trying to win against people who know how to use their weapons. A glitch in the system should not be a style of gameplay. It should be fixed.
– Lack of sniping maps. You can make a map a sniping map by using a sniper rifle and getting creative, but none of the maps feel conducive to sniping, which is really disappointing.

Five Things the Jury is Out On

– ELITE Service. Since this has been suffering from overload for the first week, it’s hard to say whether or not it’s a good service. Part of me thinks it will be, but it’s just too early to tell.
– Weapon advancement system. It’s an interesting idea to advance weapons based on your performance with them and having specialized perks for each one. I’ve only been able to advance through one weapon so far, so I don’t have a solid opinion yet.
– Strike Packages. These are a good idea, though I’ve only had the pleasure of playing one so far. It should be interesting trying the other two.
– Split-screen multiplayer. This was very laggy when I played it on MW2, so hopefully it has been tweaked a little bit to make it more fun in MW3.
– Weapon balance. I haven’t ventured into very many weapon combinations yet (trying to get used to the maps with a single weapon first), so I haven’t had a chance to see whether there is a lack of balance or not. Hopefully this will be a non-issue, but I fear that is wishful thinking.

I haven’t quite finished the campaign yet, so once I do, I will begin my final review. If there is anything you have a question about, feel free to ask!

As always, happy gaming!