Having played it, I guess I might as well burn my time writing this.
Call of Duty: Ghosts was given a lot of high expectations. The campaign was a twist to the formula; it was a game built unto this stepping stone between current gen and next gen technologies. Everybody expected this to be even more revolutionary than Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 with it's gameplay. And many people wanted this game to be good.
Well.....
Is it a good Cod? Yes. I've never found a CoD to ever be bad compared to each other; I've only seen improvements. But Black Ops 2's ideas and implementations were really cool, but most of them weren't carried over to Ghosts. Sure, there are features never before seen....but all I can say, from my first thoughts, is that it's highly disappointing. Note that this'll probably change once they do some work in the game, but....yeah.
CAMPAIGN
A heavy first act and a great third act are bogged down by the mushy mush of missions in the middle that seem to be there only because Infinity Ward wanted a setting where stuff could be blown up big and look cool. The gunfights are repetitive and boring; we won't be getting iconing gameplay moments in Blops2 like Horse Riding, Jet flying, etc. and the most epic things we might see is a building collapsing and you falling out.
Story wise, the first act is really good at setting up the feel for the game. You can instantly tell that fight as well as you can (You're the respawning god of war, after all) you're still the losing side here. The antagonist is shallow, predictable, and following this, so is the ending. Much of the missions you do have no correlation to the antagonist at all. However, the character buildup between Hesh, Logan and Elias is one of the best relationship building we've seen all throughout the entire game - from which stems a single moment throughout the story where I truly felt ingrained. It was also the only time I actually felt like wanting to pop a cap in the antagonists' head. If we had that moment coupled with the storytelling Blops 2 had with multiple timelines giving reason, providing backstory, etc. then we'd be seeing a great campaign to come.
Oh, yeah, and the length definitely isn't great in this game. And some missions are honestly just stupid. Nobody's going to start a firefight in space.
NEW FEATURES
First of all, lets talk about Squads. The evolution of Create-a-Class from previous games, we now have Squads, giving us 10 different squad members each with 6 different classes to choose from, and whose classes we can modify with up to over 20,000 different variations. It is fun, it is easy to understand albeit sometimes feeling unnecessary, and best of all - it's balanced. There's only one gun that seems to "stand out" above the rest and even then, it does so purely out of a bad net-code being "exploited".
Extinction is the new wacky mode of IW, replacing the silly game of surviving against a bunch of dudes in MP maps. Definitely unlike zombies, which was pure survival along with maybe objectives in earning achievements from completing easter eggs. Extinction pits you against aliens in an RTS-like game of micromanaging resources, restarting drills and advancing through maps by destroying the things that block your path. Is it fun? Yes, but I still find Zombies much more fun compared to this. I'm sure it'll be more fun when I play this game mode with friends who talk, though.
MULTIPLAYER
Now, on the the big stuff. We all know CoD has much of it's replay value here.
.....Big problems. Easily summed up.
- Lead map designer needs to take some happy pills, because everything is dull grey, yucky brown and almost always has trash everywhere. Remember Blops 2's maps, with a sunny skate park, a dubstep floating nightclub, the familiar and hilarious futuristic version of Nuketown? Yeah, we're never gonna be having those. Welcome to an era where everything you see is grey and boring. Maps are where you play on; if everything you see only gives off the feeling of dullness, that's exactly how players are gonna feel.
- Net code is trash. You kill in 5 bullets; the enemy kills you in one. Deaths are just about instant, yet it takes so long to kill an enemy. Can't wait for the Dedicated servers to be operational. This is why the MSBS (MS Bullshee) is good - it's the only weapon apart from snipers that you can solidly say kills with one burst in certain ranges. Its not even that hit detection is bad; just that you round a corner and die instantly, but in the kill cam you seemingly round the corner way earlier - at least, long enough for the other person to land their shots.
- Maps are dumb. Previous maps usually followed the basis of having a 'center' area, and then routes throughout it all, providing flanking, but usually funneling combat towards each other. These maps seen pretty much have the design criteria of 'diddles'. Somebody scribbled on a paper some idiotic blabber and that became the map. There are way too many places you can get shot from - there's no way you can ever cover everything.
- Big maps for more tactical gameplay; 18v18 limited to next gen. Previous games easily held 18v18 games. Now? Nope.
All in all, a bit disappointed. I'm sure things'll change soon enough, but.....
meh.
My two cents.