Fans of the franchise will immediately be able to hop into CoD: MW3 and recognize the game-play and story, for a series that has taken a year-long hiatus inbetween Modern Warfare installments, CoD: MW3 does an excellent job of not missing. Most of all, it is the same enga-ging, fast-paced story we have come to expect from a CoD title, with the only downside being the short life of it (I played through the cam-paign on Hardened in around 10 hours) as well as the lack of replayability.But then again, thats' what multiplayer is for.So many hours of upgrades and leveling and action and frustration because omg how did that guy kill me from all the way over there. Cue shrieking and yelling and 12-year-olds saying horrible things to people twice their age.It's all part of the CoD online experience.

The ubiquitous RPG-ish leveling system for online FPSes returns here, wherein you unlock new guns (though each gun must be leveled individually -- which is pretty awesome). As does the majority of the game types.

The three biggest additions / changes in multi-player come in the forms of Survival/Spec Ops (MW2's 2-player co-op), Killstreaks and a multi-player mode called Kill Confirmed.

In Spec Ops mode, there are 16 missions, with a leveling system independent of what's found in 'real' multiplayer, that have you tackling certain objectives with a buddy. Sometimes you'll be running and gunning alongside your pal. Sometimes you'll be manning a turret or shoo-ting from a sniper position to cover your team-mate. And yeah, there are two new obstacle courses. All-in-all, Spec Ops' return is a welcome one.

Survival is what we can best describe as Call of Duty-style Horde Mode. It's (again) you & a buddy (all this stuff can be played just by one person but ... why would you ever do that?), but this time you're defeating waves of increasingly difficult bad guys. It starts out easy, but eventua-lly you'll be facing Juggernauts and choppers and dogs with C4 attached to them (arguably the most awesome part of this experience). Along the way, you'll level up and acrue money, which in turn allows you to buy weapons and ammo and cal in reinforcements like a super sweet squad of Delta badasses who'll fight alongside you. It's awesome, but it begs the question: Why is this limited to two people. Why can't four people play this together?Last but certainly not least is the multiplayer

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The leveling system remains intact, though new levels (there are 80) only unlock weapons and not attachments. Also gone is the currency system. Instead, you'll have to become proficient enough at certain tasks with each weapon (headshots, firing from a crouch or prone, for example) to unlock new sights and attachments and camo. You get XP, by the way, for just about everything.

Another massive overhaul to MW3's multiplayer has been achieved in the form of a revamped Killstreak system, which is broken down into three 'packages' called Assault, Support, and Specialist. Assault is most like the Killstreak system we're used to from MW2 and Black Ops. Support is, duh, for support roles like UAV and SAM Turrets. Rewards here do not disappear when the player dies and actually accumulate over the course of a match. Specialist rewards players with perks, and after 8 kills, a player could concei-vably have every perk, but these do reset at death.Multiplayer mayhem takes place along 16 new maps, all of which are quite good, ranging in size from tiny to large.

has its own choke points and strategies, of course. All of your MP standards return: Team Deathmatch, et al.New is Team Defender and Kill Confirmed.

Team Defender charges you with picking up and holding a flag dropped by the first person to be killed in the round. While holding the flag, you get double points.Kill Confirmed is the more interesting of the two. Every enemy that you kill drops dog tags. To score, you have to retrieve those tags. But there's a flip side to it as well, because your teammates can recover the tags of the fallen themselves to prevent the other side from scoring. It makes for awesome, hectic gameplay.

MW3's multiplayer combat is very similar to Black Ops and MW2. That's not a bad thing. It's the old "If it ain't broke..." Just tweak it so that it's better.

The bummers of CoD multiplayer are still prevelant, though. Teenagers and children will demean your

other ways). Slight differences in lag between you and the host of a game will get you killed without mercy. And too often will level 1 characters tussle with level 45+ players obviously more capable in combat than the newbies are. I expect that last annoyance to level out the longer the game's in people's hands, though.

Final thoughts: The line "If it ain't broke" works per-fectly when describing CoD: MW3, because while it is basically more of the same, it's still the best FPS franchise on the market. The minor complaints regarding the short-lived single-player experience are easily outweighed by the game's epic scale and multiplayer additions. A must-own for all fans of the franchise or FPS games in general.

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FINAL GRADE: A