When EA announced and revealed the new Medal of Honor, we first thought it was a rip off of Modern Warfare, and in its entire, it mimics a lot what Modern Warfare does, and in some cases, flatly rips it off, like playing multiple characters, kill streaks and what not. However, where Medal of Honor distinguishes itself, is the fact that it takes place in a real world, and depicts a real conflict, which is the ongoing US invasion of Afghanistan. You won’t be fighting fictional bad guys in some distance place or going on a secret mission to the lair of a super villain. Here, a lot of stuff is fact based, and the game wants to appear as realistic as possible.

However, the gameplay never manages to strike a decent line between realism and arcade. For one, there’s a lot of arcade-like features that don’t seem to belong there, like a notification every time you get a head shot and your XP count, and kill streak and so on. It doesn’t fit in a game that wants to be taken seriously, because the story, while mimicking the narrative mode of Modern Warfare, is okay, and the dialogue and cut scenes are pretty good and realistic as well. There are plenty missions and there’s quite a lot of variety as well, from low key sneaking missions, to run and gun ones, to vehicle scenes. However, the game is extremely linear, where you have almost no freedom to venture beyond the planned route, no way of flanking the enemy. If you’re used to the freedom of, say, Crysis, you’ll be disappointed in MoH. Here, you’re basically carried to where you need to go. There are AI issues as well, and on top of that, the campaign runs about 5 hours on the medium setting. We expected a bit more.

The multiplayer side is a bit better and seems quite developed and polished, which is expected, considering it’s made by DICE. However, if you expect anything like Battlefield, you’ll be surely disappointed. It doesn’t have any of the Battlefield Bad Company 2 feel. The multiplayer has 24 players, and the maps aren’t that big, which adds to the intensity. However, some of the maps are quite boring, and once again, the game tries to emulate Modern Warfare with kill streaks and what not. We’d wish it was more Battlefield and less Modern Warfare.

The Good:
Realistic campaign
Great story, dialogue and cut scenes.

The Bad:
Feels like a Modern Warfare rip off
Campaign is way too linear
AI issues
Multiplayer doesn’t feel special nor different from other games

Overall score: 5/10