I third this, I gave MW3 the old college try, but it was the same things that turned me off from MW2. Lame killstreaks, the maps feel to cluttered and small. The campaign still probably sucks and i have never been a fan of Spec OPS mode, ill take zombies, thank you. What blows my mind is that Black OPs got the lower scores, Really reviewers?? Treyarch went out of there way to actually ADD to the MP and IW just took that work got rid of it and gave up MW2.5 with worst maps and only one cool mode and MW3 is getting 9s?? Okay

OT i think the shift in generation will hurt it, not a lot

A.) When Activision starts publishing bad CoD games or rather when Treyarch/Slegdehammer/whoever develops the games stopped doing a good job.

B.) When people start getting sick of it.

I think both are equally as likely to happen.

MW3 is the best COD yet dude and i've been playing since COD 2. What's not good about it? It's amazing in almost every way. The maps are the most interesting and complex yet. The weapons are very balanced and most of the annoying shit in previous COD games are gone (except for the dual fmgs of course). Also the perks and killstreaks are by far the best yet. I can't play previous CODs anymore cause I'm so used to the amazing stalker perk!

People say COD 4 was the best COD but that is total BS. The guns were no where near as balanced. The frags were way too powerful making some maps such as 'wet works' unplayable. Some of the perks were total ass like that martyrdom crap. Black Ops had crap like second chance and ghost. At least the assassin perk tier in MW3 has some other great perks to rival assassin unlike ghost in black ops.

- Deathstreaks - Why the hell are they back from MW2? They don't actually help bad players, they just piss off good players. Seriously and why is there dead man's hand? How is it a good idea to have bitches go Al Queda on me with C4 when I kill them?

- You may like the maps, but it's almost unanimous that they're some of the worst in the series. 

- Killstreak spam more than ever, especially thanks to the support killstreaks. And all the UAV spam forces everyone to wear assassin. 

- The guns aren't even remotely balanced. Akimbo machine pistols dominate secondaries, the shotguns are absolute trash, Sniping is way overpowered (everyone and their mother can quickscope), and the Type 95 is ridiculously overpowered. 

- The knifing system is brutal. I can't tell you how many times I've shotgunned kids and get a hitmarker and they come up and knife me. 

- Lag compensation. It's mean to make the game fair by putting artificial lag on people with great connection to the host, but all it does is either put people half a second ahead or half a second behind in the game. It's the worst idea ever, MW2 actually had better connections than MW3. 

My only good points about this game are the Specialist Killstreaks which are awesome, and the Kill Confirmed game mode. Everything else about it is just MW2 all over again, or in some cases worse. 

And CoD4 is easily the best dude. Sniping is perfect (not overpowered but also not underpowered), the maps are some of the best in the entire series, the perks are completely balanced (stopping power, juggernaut and UAV jammer perfectly rival each other) and there's no killstreak spam. Only downsides are the M16 is overpowered, and grenades (martyrdom and frag x3). 

well, the fps genre seems to never "get old" to many people (very natural view + guns + guaranteed adrenalin rush - I guess), so I do imagine as the most popular franchise in this market CoD still has quite a bright future ahead

COD4 > Black Ops > MW3 > WaW > MW2 for meh.

It'll happen when a developer makes a fresh new game that does everything that COD does, but better and more fun. No COD clone is going to outsell COD (obviously), plus the game needs to feel as good to play as COD does, not clunky like Battlefield.

This will probably happen next gen.

Well I would like to answer a few of your points since I've been playing MW3 since launch, here's what I think.

-Deathstreaks-Yes I agree, I HATE these, they punish me for playing good and rewards the bad player for playing bad. But tbh sometimes it can be helpful when you are getting spawn trapped. So ones like Juiced and the one that allows you to see your killer are fine, but final stand and dead man's hand are TERRIBLE.

-Maps are indeed some of the worst in the series, I like close quarters but I don't like the clutter. Plus it would be nice to have some variety in the maps, big, small, etc.

-KS spam is a non-issue, since stinger is my best friend. Very easy to shoot down helicopters, drones, etc. Spy planes are an issue since they can force assasin. But if you are good with your gun, it shouldn't matter if you can't see them on the radar. Also noobs almost always run hardline, snipers have to run quickdraw for quickscoping, so you rarely ever see an entire team of assasin like you saw ghost teams in black ops.

-Guns in this game are actually very decent. For assault rifles besides the T-95, ACR, SCAR, M14 are all viable options. For smgs, everything except that stupid UZI is great (MP7 is one of the best guns EVER). Shotguns, unlock extended mags and damage and see if you still call them trash. They are some of the most fun to use and striker is very effective, if not too effective. Snipers are about the same as MW2, I personally would have preferred no quick scoping like BO, but whatever. Personally snipers in COD4 annoyed me the most, almost half the other team are snipers. LMGs suck, like the always did. Akimbo FMGs are indeed overpowered even after the patch. But even then, gun variety in this game is the best its ever been, you have a tremendous amount of viable options to go with which supports different playstyles.

-Knifing, they need to remove it from the game period, it is simply annoying the angles people knife me from, they aren'e even facing me and I still get taken out.

-Lag was pretty bad, but now its no longer much of an issue after the patches. Same with the spawn system.

Oh just not fond of Treyarch's way of doing things. Not to say they are bad compared to others out there. I just consider or considered (not sure how much of old infinity ward is left) IW making games more catered to my taste. For example one game mechanic that annoyed me was infinite enemy spawns in black ops. Literally never ending supply of vietnamese soldiers in one of the levels. Also they totally disregarded pc and ps3 versions of the game. The game was broken when it shipped. Yes, MW2 and 3 had to be patched but it was playable but on the other hand it took them 3-4 months to get the game working well on PS3. I mean in the industry of yearly iterations that is just 8 months months to go till next one. I guess these are some of the points i don't like their games. Not bad but not as good as modern warfare games imo. 

Happy gaming :)

As Big Lebowski said yea well that is just like your opinion man. Haha sorry weird to way to respond. I just felt totally opposite. I felt Black Ops outside the campaign was kind of crap. Again don't take it personally, just my opinion. Black Ops is one of the few games i got rid from collection without an ounche of regret. Anyways just saying reviewers don't have to agree with you and i know you never said that they should. Enjoy Black Ops 2. 

Happy gaming :)