Review: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer is a sweet addiction

The untested Call of Duty Elite

Because of outages in the first couple of days, the Call of Duty Elite social network remains one of the great unknowns at the moment. The service is designed to keep gamers engaged for the whole year, not just in the few weeks after the game comes out. If you subscribe to the premium version for $49.99 a year, you can get access to all of the coming map packs and monthly downloadable content. If it works, it will be one more reason that Call of Duty will be addictive.

I got into Elite for a short time on Monday to see my stats under the Career mode. You can study the multiplayer maps and figure out where you’re getting killed and how to improve your play in the future. In the future, you will be able to watch Call of Duty-related video such as the Noob Tube or Friday Night Fights. You’ll also be able to compete in everyday contests, join groups and clans, and link up with friends with similar interests. It’s a great idea, but one that is still awaiting full execution. Once Activision Blizzard gets this fixed, Modern Warfare 3 could get a lock on some of the most lucrative players in gaming.

As we noted before, Beachhead Studios worked on the Elite service as a social network for all things Call of Duty for more than two years. The goal was to integrate the service deeply with Modern Warfare 3. Since Activision Blizzard dedicated a full studio to Elite, it is considered a major investment.

Even before the launch of Modern Warfare 3, the Call of Duty community is already one of the strongest there is. More than 30 million people have played online this year and 20 million players play each month. On average, the Call of Duty player plays 170 hours of the game per year. That’s as much time spent as watching the full series of the Sopranos and Lost, combined.

For every day that the service isn’t working, that’s a lot of lost eyeballs.

Conclusion

Modern Warfare 3’s multiplayer gives players more choices in what is an already expansive environment for gaming. That’s one reason why the series sold more than 25 million in the past year and why it will likely do great again this year. Players might very well get bored because it is too similar to past games; but that’s the curse of having online multiplayer combat that works so well.

I’ve got a long way to go, as I’m only 16 percent done with leveling up on multiplayer. I’ll report some more progress and return to Elite once it becomes stable. Yes, dear reader. I will continue to die for you over and over again. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice, as this play is really hard work. If I had to give multiplayer alone a rating, I would rank it as 90 out of 100.

Please check out our Skyrim and Lord of the Rings War in the North reviews as well.