Battlefield: Bad Company 2

I'm currently quite disappointed with Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Deeply disappointed, in fact, because when I first started playing the multiplayer online demo, I was in love. Extensive vehicle combat, completely destructible landscapes, and trace RPG (level-up) elements. It was a blast to play, and I stayed with the demo for a few hours, despite having access to only one type of match and only one map. "Squad Rush" was a great mix of tactical objectives, team cooperation, and good ol' fashioned shoot 'em up. Class differences, level up and weapon enhancement opportunities...I was hooked.

And then it all changed. I had trouble logging on the next day, and I thought that was odd. It looked like EA authentication servers were having some trouble, and EA's unresponsive website confirmed this, in my mind. But I was wrong, it wasn't mere authentication server issues, it was...perfidy! They were altering the game, making it different... When I next logged on, my engineer had more RPG rounds, which was nice, except...I rarely got the chance to use them, as I was being air-dropped without a parachute. Tank rounds were melting faces entirely across the map and shooting through mountains, engineers were throwing Hail Mary passes with their RPG rounds with unprecedented success, and the game became, for lack of a better word, dismal.

The graphical layout of the game pales in comparison to Modern Warfare 2, and I would think a "hotly anticipated" title such as B:BC2 would understand that MW2 had already achieved something close to full-market saturation, and not on gimmick alone, but merit. Why release, in the wake of what was probably the most successful title of 2009, an FPS that's graphically less pleasing, mechanically less functional, and significantly less customizable?

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 has two advantages over Modern Warfare 2: increased vehicle combat, and fully destructible landscapes. That being said, those advantages are minor. Modern Warfare 2 was a masterfully orchestrated title that quite literally distilled the carnage, chaos, and violence of warfare into something dimly recognizable as beauty. In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, you can knock down walls. You tell me which is better.