Modern Warfare 3's gameplay reveal was dull, but it also teased something legitimately exciting

pcgamer.com:

Every year when the clock strikes Call of Duty, you can count on Activision to do the same two things: tell us this year CoD is the biggest, most innovative one yet, and then undermine all of that by dropping an underwhelming gameplay video.

For a series that's constantly fighting the perception that it doesn't change enough to justify buying another $70 game (a battle that's especially uphill this year), it's remarkable just how unremarkable Modern Warfare 3 looked during Geoff Keighley's Opening Night Live stream.

You could watch the reveal above, or I could save you nine minutes by describing it in the form of a Modern Warfare bingo card: 

I considered that I'm being too harsh on Modern Warfare 3, but then I went back and watched last year's Modern Warfare 2 campaign reveal and checked off all the same boxes (yes even the final smash cut). That reveal was so by-the-numbers that, at the time, it left Rich and I with low hopes for the full campaign. 

Then I played the Modern Warfare 2 campaign and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. It's one of my favorites in recent memory largely thanks to a few standout missions that break up CoD's frantic pace, like the point-and-click stealth section where you just control cameras for 15 minutes, or the survival bit where you lose your gun and have a full-fledged crafting system. Where was any of that in the teasers?

Sledgehammer Games is steering the ship this year, not Infinity Ward, but I suspect Modern Warfare 3's campaign will have more to it than what we saw today. We actually got a brief glimpse at one new campaign feature on stage—Open Combat Missions, which Sledgehammer described as side missions «positioned seamlessly alongside» the main campaign. Open Combat