Sad as it may sound COD may remain popular until an extremely bad cod is released or something better and popular replaces it.

Here is my Theory on why people play games like MW2:

MW2 isn't great nor is it Bad its a below average shooter riddled with game breaking issues and game balance issues everywhere. But why is there so many people playing online??

The reason is Simple: Because everyone else does, check your friends lists(PS3,360) you have an high chance that there is someone playing MW2.

The facts are is that because everyone plays it makes them put up with the issues and flaws because they want to play what there friends are. The only way to stop is too all think all at around the same time this game sucks. And thats what happened to me and my friends playing it. We got 2 months in after playing months of WAW, and i had enough and said this game sucked and sold it for BFBC2 and while they  till played  until they relied that it sucked and dont play no more.

But not everyone is going to do that especially the ones who dont understand whats bad and that there are much less frustrating and more enjoyable experiences. i guarantee that if you go into any game there would be one person that thinks this game sucks hard and they only play it because all there friends do. 

So the only way COD is going to go away is there to be such an bad game that everyone hates it and i mean Worst than MW2 that the issues are more present then the gamebreaking ones.

But for the sake of gaming its self i hope this dies by next year because the FPS market is suffering and gaming its self because its tricking developers to make half ass games like MW2 but when they do they fail. most hope depends on Battlefield 3, or Activison f'ing up like they have done with most of there franchises 

You are "almost" right... YEAH... MW2 has an amazing survive rate of not getting numbers down on Online Players.. I always get back to MW2 for team play.. and has so many ways to play online that you don´t get rid so eazy..

I din´t bought Killzone2, Uncharted 2, BF2, etc.. because I spent time playing only MW2 and sometimes, snooker, poker, bowling.. also with my friends... thru PSN.. of course that poker has offline meeting with wisky and cuabn cigar (I don´t like, but sometimes when a street flash happens..cigar comes! lol.)..

So wanna play off line poker, come to Brazil, wanna play search and destroy at favela, come to MW2.. :)

tears.

I have between 40-50 friends on PSN and 30-40 of them own or have played MW2...

Yes, mainstream kills creativity and promotes peer pressure. It's how the world works.

Your theory is flawed at several levels :

If the game below average why does it get top critics and popularity ?

The fact "everyone" has it does create inertia for both the title itself and the franchise, but it doesn't explain how it got there.

There weren't many realistic & successful shooters before COD, and since COD4 the genre has become THE genre. How do you explain a below average game would develop a genre almost by itself ?

if that were true we would still be painting animals and hands in deep caves... lol

it probably helps that it's one of the best FPS available and highly addictive at the same time....

by believe on how it came so popular was 

1. Hype, everyone was caught up in the massive Hype surrounding the game, and it was hyped up to believe it was the greatest thing ever when it came people had been hoping it was so good that they just believed it. Its like if Jesus came back and he was an ugly horrible person but people would believe he is the greatest anyways. 

2. It takes a while to discover majority of its flaws: to understand the multiplayer flaws you would of had to have played it for a while which the reviewers never did. Also you dont take notice that much of the story first time but second time you discover how F'ed it well towards the end, the beginning made sense tho.

MW2 was a beautiful looking Pie, the crust is delicious which the critics only ate but once you dig into the core you discover that its a big pile of S***. 

True, I believe a lot of sales are driven by peers, especially MW2. But it is also a fun game. Even though it can be frustrating at times, the many different weapons and perks make for diverse gameplay. Online matches rotate so quickly without hardly any gap, which adds addictive qualities.

1. Haha --> MAG ? Haze ? Killzone 2 ?

2. hardly makes sense :

if the majority of flaws takes a while to be discovered that must be a damn good game with relatively insignificant flaws

now reviewers have played it extensiveley (after all it's almost been a year) and COD2 still stands as #1 realistic shooter in pretty much every aspect

had it been truly flawed the game would have ceased to be so much played online a long time ago

Thanks for trying