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I'm going to have to do this in 2 parts since I haven't gotten far in the campaign yet. This is normally the first thing I play almost straight though in a COD but with Advanced Warfare I've been focused on Multiplayer.

AW was a first for me personally. I preordered it as soon as it was up at gamestop back in May and did the midnight (11pm central) day 0 pickup the Sunday it was available. It also cost me $120 since Jen managed to scam/bribe me into buying her copy. We both had Monday off to play. She played at her house, I played at mine.

I won't get into past CODs much since most reading this have already played them. Since I saw the announcement and the exo suit back in May I was very much doubting I'd like AW. It looked like Titanfall or Halo, no COD. Turns out I love the exo, or I do now since I've learned (mostly) to use it correctly.

Exo adds a whole new dynamic to COD. You can now quickly "boost" around the maps and quickly get in or out of trouble. You can also exo dodge on the ground or in the air which can be quite effective to get you out of someone's sights.

The exo moves take getting used to and you actually have to play smart. Unless you counter with blast suppressor each time you use it you pop up on the minimap. If you jump around randomly you will get shot in the air or you'll land right in the bad guys sights. Now using exo smartly you can quickly get to where you need to be, stay out of the open and move faster than most people can shoot. You can avoid the camp spots or come at them in so many ways that most camping is ineffective. Quick use of the minimap and you and your team can flank and come at the enemy from all directions.

Maps are mostly designed for the exo dynamic. There are tons of places to land on top of at multiple levels. Ground game is still effective but good use of all levels seems to work best for me.

Loadouts use a pick 13 system similar to BOII. You get 13 points to equip exo abilities, primary, secondary, perks and scorestreaks in any combination you want. A system of level based unlocks limits what you can do/get at first. I don't care for this personally since you have to develop each gun from scratch before you start to get attachment unlocks. I liked the Ghosts system where you earn squad points and unlock the guns, attachments and perks you want early on. The AW system has lead to many people using the first two AR's that are default unlocked, and others whining that they are OP since they get killed with them LOL. I disagree on the OP but the system makes it where you pretty much get comfortable with 1-2 guns and work on unlocks for them.

There are several exo abilities to choose from in the loadouts, some unlocked based on level. There is a cloaking device, stim which gives you an instant health boost, various launchers, hover and some other stuff. Abilities like stim or cloak are very limited due to the "battery power" of your exo suit. Personally the only one I run is stim which has saved me many times. I get shot, hit the stim, turn around and mow someone down, or it gives enough life to flee the area.

Scorestreaks IMO are mostly worthless. Right now I am only running UAV to improve the minimap. The other slot points are put into other things. One nice thing about ineffective killstreaks is that when you play a good game you actually did it yourself rather than having tard dog/sentry gun/battlehind doing all the work while you hide.

Whiners
Just like with any COD there are a bunch of crybabies. If you go over to the COD AW forum you'd think the entire game was broken and coded by 2 year olds. I'm not seeing most of the crybaby problems here. The game plays quite well especially for a new release on my old tired X360. I'll go over some of the common cries.

Lag/latency: Zero problems here. I didn't expect any since I don't have them with other CODs. Others crying about game being unplayable. The bottom line is that those with constant problems are the problem. I work in the tech industry and know how some end users can't/won't follow the most basic instructions and advice. I know how they are "experts" and have beastly setups and the problem could never be them. It's always the equipment or someone else's fault.

If you have lag issues with other CODs then don't buy AW. You'll have problems. If you are playing on pigfarm DSL in the middle of nowhere, you'll have problems. That 4G hotspot….you'll have problems. Running on wireless, not putting your console outside the firewall/NAT, you'll have problems.

Low K/D: People whine about this. New game, new maps, new dynamics it is to be expected. Just because you or I are well tuned killing machines in previous CODs doesn't entitle us to a 2 or 3 or 4 K/D out of the gate in AW. You've got to learn the maps and learn to use exo effectively.

Matchmaking: It hasn't been proven and I don't know for sure but some seem to think there is skill based matchmaking going on. If there is I don't have a problem with it at all. The ones crying about it are the guys that think they are really good. I said this before with Ghosts, if you put some of these self proclaimed beasts in a lobby with actual good players their K/D goes in the toilet. They just aren't that good without a bunch of noobs or idiots for easy kills. The guys crying about this are basically admitting the same. They don't want to work or play against good players, they want it easy. Basically they want to be a professional football player but only play against the high school b-team. It's comical IMO.

The list from the crybabies goes on and on. Like I said basically same whines, different COD. AW plays quite well if you learn to play it and you are set up right.

Overall I really like Advanced Warfare. It is just different enough from other CODs to make it fun yet it is not so far out there that you don't recognize the game. It is not titanfall or halo. It probably won't go down as my favorite COD but it is good.