It's not a terrible game. In term sof graphics it's pretty darn good. In terms of gameplay and depth - it's chanelling 2004. Maybe it's just the franchise is getting very old. Maybe it's shooters in general are just too darn profligate that we are all getting jaded and bored with the same game over and over and over (and over and over) again. Maybe that's the case, but you can't forgive such simple gameplay and lack or tactical depth. Pretty poor but not awful.… Expand

the game is so ugly, the campaign is so scripted, the weapons sounds so bad. the only things that works is the mp. but even the mp is boring as hell. i'll stick with cod mw 3.

Blops 2 has some good things going for it, but they are completely offset by the horrific implementation of lag compensation. Because I have a fast connection and I live in the NYC metro area (which is probably close to many of Treyarch's dedicated servers) I had to play a lot with my router setup to make the game playable 50% of times; this was a big improvement from before as I was shooting rubber bullets almost 100% of times. And I'm not talking about port forwarding stuff- I actually had to limit my upload speed so that the Treyarch's servers would think that I have a crappy connection. But nobody should be jumping through hoops to make a $60 game to play as advertised. I almost miss MW3...… Expand

Every year Activision chums the water seeking mindless carnivores who continue to eat the detritus of last year's rotting corpse. This year is no different than the last five. If you decide to spend the $60 for the game or $80 on the DLX Edition or $50 on the Season Pass go ahead. A fool and his money are soon parted.

Suprised that Treyarch did something different for a change? I am. Most of the Call of Duty games have had a terrible singleplayer experience with nothing new to add. This game may not be fanatstic, but actually made an attempt at something new for change that wound up having a fairly good singleplayer experience that is worth replaying. Get to pick your weapons before each mission and adds some customization and new light to a almost dead series of games.… Expand

I can only look down and shake my head in pity to see what the CoD series have become. But I can also point and laugh at all the moronic fans trying to plunge their head into the sand with denial going "Lalalalala". That is, however, mainly peer-pressure in which I also shake my head in pity.

Where do I begin. I guess I will begin with what is good. The Campaign was entertaining, and it mostly makes sense. A few plot holes here and there, but I can deal with that as ling as it entertains. Then I decided to open the multiplayer. Coming into the multiplayer I read a post by a Treyarch dev on twitter saying there were going to be dedicated servers. THAT IS WHY I BOUGHT THE GAME. What I did not realize was that shortly after the Black Ops 2 site announced that the GOD AWFUL MATCH MAKING SYSTEM WAS BACK! Why would any semi-intelligent person actually think that piece of garbage is a good idea. Dedicated servers are the norm for PC FPS games now, but it seems Activision cannot get that through their thick skull. The mindless drones that play Xbox do not care about dedicated servers. The PC community does. VAC DOES NOT WORK. IT HAS NEVER WORKED. WHY WOULD IT WORK FOR BO2? Cheaters are on every vac "secured" game. But do you want to know why they don't fill the servers of those games? Server admins are the best enforcers. They are playing on their server and make sure no one cheats. It also allows others to report the cheaters to their respective communities and have them banned from the server. Eventually in about 6 months or so VAC will ban them, but without the dedicated server enforcement that is way too much time. And the PC community likes to customize their playing experience. Crouch servers, sniper servers, No noob tube servers, 24/7 Nuketown servers, and a who slew of other custom servers are what the people want, not the stupid matchmaking system full of cheaters. So there: 1 point for an enjoyable campaign,… Expand

I must admit, after the first BO I was very skeptical but Treyarch did a much better job. The in-game movement is more fluid, the graphics are cleaner and sharper and the weapons are decent. The single player is extremely annoying but had great potential. Sadly Treyarch felt the need to force you into long story lines where you had zero control and incorporate too many scenes where you had to follow along to get to the next stage. You cannot go back and forth between missions so if you miss a goal or intel items, you are screwed and have to start over. I am sure I am one of the rare breed that actually spends countless hours on the campaign but in this case, I barely made it through due to the urge to throw my PC out a window. It was painful to sit through with no ability to skip all the stupid talking. Nice try but you still failed.
One day Activision will learn they can take MW2 and enhance it with all new maps, additional weapons and it will still be better than BO, MW3 & BO2 combined. Apparently those of you rating this a 10 cannot comprehend very well that there is lots of room for improvement and you are easily amused. Then again, I was too when I was 9.… Expand

Still the exact same gameplay as medal of honor which cod first tipped off 10 years ago.
Stil the same flaws like the awful spawn system.

No server browser, no more mod support, no rcon tools, narrow fov.
The series has regressed since cod4 and deserves a score that reflects that, it was never a very good game but now it's a mediocre game with a lot of features missing.

I give Treyarch credit for trying to push it in a new direction slightly with the single player and the multi player tweaks but the game is nothing special. The single player story is interesting. The multi player is ok but more of the same and some of the weapons feel really imbalanced. If you need something to pass time and have a bunch of friends to play with grab this game up otherwise.... Pass.… Expand

Just another mappack, thats how to describe this game best. Seems that activision is one of the few studios that can get away with just rehashing a game year after year and have people pay the full amount of 60 euros for it.

This game is such a shameless ripoff to the previous that it's almost insulting to the gaming industry in general. The critic reviews are obviously paid reviews seeing as this game gets a 9 on average. In short this game doesn't do anything to revolutionize or even improve upon the existing FPS model. It doesn't even give you top notch graphics for the money you pay.… Expand

I don't understand how these game sells so well. COD4 was the best and last great game in the series. BLOPS II is lackluster and the devs have no creativity as it shows in the maps. The graphics are dated and the console match making is lame. The only good thing about this game is that I didn't pay full price for it. BTW the latest MOH is better than this game. I will play it as a filler game and to play some Zombies.… Expand

Weak (shockingly boring) campaign, poorly plotted, linear to the point of funneling the player into a virtual tunnel (even preventing flanking the opposition), a real lack of game-play innovation, bad software quality, poor performance tuning / optimization, and appears not to have been even superficially play-tested in parts. Overall a shoddy release not worthy of being a sequel. MW, MW2, Black Ops1 are absolute classics. MW3 suffered from bad plotting, but Black Ops 2 takes that deficiency, adds a whole bunch of other letdowns, and is really disappointing.… Expand

This game is so BAD=Terrible that it feels like a free to play FPS.The developers drop the ball with this poor excuse of a game. I Want my $60 bucks back.

Black Ops II is a good game. It certainly isn't a great game. It is just more of the same. The main issue I have is that the content is shifting towards unrealistic content. Basically, the developer tries really hard to create "uh" and "oh" moment, but sadly reality remains behind with this approach.
From my point of view a saver is the Zombie add-on. It's fun to play! On the other hand the multi-player is stale and, luckily, I didn't even bother buying the $50 subscription for additional maps. Pricing for maps is moving towards being ridiculous by the way...
Another positive thing is the graphics. They look greatly improved in comparison to the last release.
Anyhow, my advise to Activision would be to skip a year and to go back to the drawing board. This release really looks like a yearly cookie cutter release with better graphics. I also think they need to re-think their DLC strategy. When I picked up my copy there was a long line in the store, but I only saw one person out of 20 buying the map subscription... I mean who really wants to pay the price of a full game for DLC?… Expand

A bad console port to PC. Inflated price for a re-hash of older CoD games. Same 'on rails' single player experience. In MP you need to hit someone a few times with a LMG with FMJ bullets, in HC mode, to kill them. Not the CoD experience I am used to... Feels more like the normal mode, but worse. Good to see lean/peak is back to CoD. But worst of all is.... No dedicated servers! WTF?!!! Which means it is difficult to find a game for MP and/or will get disconnected when host leaves. Unacceptable!!! And you are at the mercy of Activi$ion. No way to kick chaters, mod a server (even within the game rules etc...). Last CoD purchase for me ever. Will probably revert to Cod 4 and even BO. CoD 4 remains the best to this day. Strange thing is I would have paid more for new versions of CoD. Or just new maps or enhancements of the versions already there. You lost me for good now, Activi$ion! I am a PC gamer! Edit: An update as it really bugs me: 12 player multiplayer? Are **** me Activi$ion?!!! And the lag encountered on matchmaking is really annoying. Some of the animation and models are v. cartooney compared with previous CoD's. Don't buy this **** Can't believe I am supporting an EA game, but if you have money to burn, buy BF3 or buy Red Orchestra 2, buy COD 4! Stay well away from this. We are PC gamers! Edit #2: So I am not accused for criticising without trying it. After playing MP for 5 days, I can confirm CoD is dead. It took until all/most perks and addons were unlocked. Now almost every game is won by one or two guys running around with knives. There is no balance in the game anymore. There is no fun. You can blame it on my inexperience, but I am a decent player. I didn't think I would be playing for too long this sad excuse of a game, but to not last even a week.... I repeat! Don't buy this **** This is a poor console game - leave it to consoles. We are PC gamers!… Expand

Please stop funding these games. By buying this rehashed garbage, you support the industry's efforts at belittling and trivializing gaming. Every Call of Duty game or DLC pack you buy goes directly into weakening the claims of game as art or a form of expressive medium. These games represent the worst of where creativity and innovation lay in the industry: buried among indie developers and new studios barely scraping by with new and interesting IPs. Do the industry and yourself a favor: go buy Natural Selection 2 instead.… Expand

Hated MW2. Hated MW3. I was able to try this one for a short time. Couldn't wait to get angry and start raging on how bad this series is, and so off I played. After playing for 2 days of experiencing and trying basically enough, I have to say this...it has improved. It hurts me to say, but it has few improvements over the previous games. First of, I liked how the perks are extremely few and unlike the previous, which many were useless and only few were good, now we get few perks and almost none are that useful and actually work as "perks". Instead, some of the "old" perks are now some sort of "attachments" to weapons which are unlocked by using them more often, and in here we also get the levels for weapons, which is a nice addition. They tried hard to balance the game, even by limiting our perks, weapons, attachments and everything with a limit of 10...which balances things....I guess? Weapons are still rather similar but they TRIED to make them different this time and I noticed few differences while using some of them...like one would give less recoil...another would do more...but the same damage...? Arenas have improved as well: we get colors! Few, but it's so great to find more than 2 colors in an arena, without mentioning that I haven't played that many matches with campers (there were, but nothing impossible to counter). And jokes aside, they tried to make most of the arenas trying to be careful on blind corners...which unfortunely still are present, showing either that it's programming fault or their own choice. People will either think I'm joking or being serious but to be honest, the answer is just one: this game is still horrible, and that's no joke. While it has improvements over the others, it's still not worth a single cent on this game: weapons are still too similar and have the biggest fault of having no need to aim at all: just shoot and you'll kill (you might need to aim only on long distances); arenas, while cured a little more, show how graphics are HORRIBLE and simply unacceptable and while I accepted the graphics of the previous games, this one is totally unworthy of attention. And campers are still around in some arenas, so it's not fixed yet; balancing of the classes is still far from being even remotely good, letting us customize with just tons of useless perks (even if fewer than previous games) and overpowered killstreaks, which works with points instead of kills, but still can be a gamebreaker pretty easily and without letting you escape. This game is just mediocre, like the previous games, and while it may be a good purchase this time, the game is still expensive like day 1 and, in all honesty, you can spend those euros/dollars for much better games (and cheaper as well). If you ever find this game on discount (not gonna happen) you might give it a try and maybe even having fun until the next installment arrives (after that, this game literally dies). But seriously, if you want to play an arena based fps, with lots of weapons, with very low graphics, no real physics and simply fast pacing gaming....play either Quake 3 arena or Unreal tournament.… Expand

Non-multiplayer this game is beautiful! I love it. Great missions. But, lets be honest with each other this game is meant to be mostly played online multi-player over steam. It was the 2nd day I already found a handful of hackers with aimbots and it is growing every day. This was a huge problem in MW3 and steam and activation did nothing about it. I have to give it a low rating because they refused to do anything about hackers. I am shocked aimbots already playing in the 2nd day of release. I recommend buying this game on console only and don't waste your money on the PC version.… Expand

I played every title, that belong to the CoD-Universe. Some I like much, some not. What I can sure say, the genre is going down the drain. The single player BO2 is better than the BO. Especially in Germany where no original sound is possible. The single-player from BO2 is a bit boring. To much cut scenes where you cant do anything. The multi player is like, respawn & die, respawn & die, respawn & die, respawn & die, almost instantly. Levels a very small and cheats seen to bee always on.… Expand

Multiplayer is fun, pretty much same gameplay but with improvements here and there. Tbh its the best looking call of duty there is, and some things look decent, not the best but decent (maxed on PC). Zombies looks pretty much the same though, but the new tranzit mode is a lot of fun. The Multiplayer maps are well made, and over all is a fun game. Worth buying and i do not understand the negative reviews. I presume theyre coming primarily from people who hate CoD or MW3 players. Blops series has been better than MW series in my opinion.… Expand

The runs like butter, it has everything a PC gamer would want for a PC system. The game is really well done, they improved zombies, the multiplayer with the pick 10, and the single player is overall a different experience. The reason why I made my score a 10, is because this game is deff not a 3.1. Im not a COD HUGE FAN, I've only played black ops 1 & 2, and mw3. So far, if your asking about the differences between the PC verisons of mw3 and black ops 2, there is a lot. They added FOV up to 80, a patch coming to make it to 90. The controls are better, you no longer have to press spacebar to stand from crouching like in black ops 1. The graphics compare to the first black ops are so much better. The game runs like butter. They even added a FPS meter to display your FPS. The game is in 3 different .exe's. So you don't have to install the WHOLE game to play multiplayer, only the things you need. (You may need to download the single player, not sure, I installed them all).

If these people are saying that the game is the same, and should be a low rating, they are wrong. This game does everything fine, and doesn't have any issues to have a low rating. The stuff they do they do it right.

Good:
The pick 10 system allows for some type of loadouts we never have seen. This is awesome, black ops 2, now give you even more control with how you want to create your class.

The league play works awesome. You gotta do 5 pre-games before you are ranked, then your placed into a certain rank, similar to Starcraft 2. Also, they've unlocked all items for loadouts of course.

The game includes text chat within matches, and voice. (A lot of new games don't do this, specially the ones that are direct "ports", like everyone here is saying it is).

The single player missions are REALLY well done. If you just start off playing the single player, your are constantly doing something different. Your not always just killing people, and once again the story is really well done.

Hmm... the engine runs like butter on the PC.

For the emblem system, they added (I believe) 32 layers for you to create something. Another amazing improve from the first black ops.

They added two new modes including multi team (teams of 3, I think its 3 teams? Im not a big mult-team player). And they added hard point, which is like a king of the hill. --On top of the new modes, they changed the way 'fun modes' work. Like 'One in the chamber' or 'Gun game', these games now give you XP for playing them. So people that want to just level up by that way can!

So far, with the online, The matchmaking system is working awesome for me. Treyarch, to me, did an amazing job with the online. It works perfectly fine, just as if your playing on a Xbox 360.

Like there is just so many things they added to this game, its hard for me to even wanna type it all out.

Its a great game, and doesn't deserve a 3.1. I never review games on metacritic, but I give credit, where credit is due. I believe black ops 2 is 10x better then mw3 for so many reasons, and if you can't see that, then I guess don't buy it.

Rated a 9 for the PC verison.

Bad:
No elite on PC yet.… Expand

I didn't purchae the game, getting my brother to blindly spend the monies on this crap as he still can't see the trees from the wood with this series. My expectations were spot on and after spending a few hours watching him play the game on the big screen tellie, occasionally having a go myself that this series is indeed hobbling along on its last leg. Graphics are sub-par, so much for making use of DirectX 11 on the PC as the game looks identical to the first Mondern Warfare from five years ago. Anyhow I am by no means the best person to judge this, as I quit after MW2 with the series, but if this is your thing, playing the same thing over and over and over and over ad nauseum again year in on out then by all means go for it else avoid like the plague! You can do much much better with your $60 of hard earned cash.… Collapse

Utterly crap. I know this will get hyped as always from the likes of IGN etc. The Game was overhyped, is overpriced, horribly mainstream and just not fun.

The only reason to buy this game disappeared the day they pulled Nuketown 24/7, maybe it's worth 20 bucks or less but it's still better than BF3 which is a premium on top of premium with microtransactions fest.

I believe that first Black Ops was a great achievement, not in terms of graphics or something, but in terms mentality of atmosphere and game concept. That created an absolutely new idea and gave a game a new feel - a great schizophrenic experience when you play as a main hero, suffering from his broken sense of reality. Setting was also incredible - hard times all around, war is close to us, country leaders, great countries, everything worked well. I played all of CoD games, and Black Ops was an outstanding achievement - not just fun with a gun, but fun with a brain.

So, when i heard new Black Ops is on the way i expected that another something incredible will be delivered. And, finally....
It delivered but there's no nothing that can be described as "delivered". It has some cloudy connections with first Black Ops, but connections are just meaningless extras - you can remove them and game will be okay with out them because, as i said, they are so cloudy so just don't make any sense. You've got some storyline that too far from words "interesting" or "involving" because storyline is way too artificial and make sense just in case you have no another new game to play (my case). Graphics-shmaphics are okay, not better than first part and sometimes looks worse than first part. Militaristic future is boring and repeatable although Afghanian mujaheddins armed with power of horses against some Soviet forces (sorry for a rhyme) are just ridicolous. Main hero is radiating brutality and postive way of thinking, but i didn't get anything interesting from a character, he's more like a robot that go down by scenario. Okay, there're some moments you'll find catchy but not too catchy to get you play again.

Et cetere, et cetera, i can call many other silly stuff. Game isn't worth money they are asking for that, time isn't worth to spend playing, go get first part and be really happy if you didn't have a chance before.

I gave 4 only for time i spent, but...in case another replica of that sort is on the way - i'm not going to buy it.… Expand

The same game, but worst. Without AI, without graphics, This game in PC is simply bad. One year ahead, same game of 2004. In 2004 this game is an 8, now is a 3.

This has got to be the most revolting "steaming" pile of **** I've ever **** seen. First off Activision, try patching your God forsaken games before you release them to the public. I swear, it's like this game is still in it's Alpha stage of development. I've seen mod teams that produced WAY better games than this **** swill, and they didn't cost $60 dollars either, THEY WERE FREE! There hasn't been an inkling of effort or creativity put into this franchise since COD4 (RELEASED NEARLY 6 YEARS AGO), and I just find that **** pathetic. So, if you're sick and tired of playing the same old re-hashed bull**** every year, then just do the following: BOYCOTT THE ****… Expand