I agree but I am in the minority because sales and reviews disagree.

And yet they give all the installments (starting from COD 4) amazingly high scores...

I would think the basic point of being bored with a franchise, is to not buy it every year, if getting bored by it.  Wait every other year at least.  Also, it is OK to go and play a different franchise.  Like, find Call of Duty getting dull, go play something like Minecraft.

I know people like to hate COD developers/Activision, and I can definitely see why. But take a moment to think about it from their perspective.

If this was your franchise and it has hit the mass market 20 million+ status, would you really all of a sudden change the entire formula around that fans quite obviously love? Would you listen to the 100,000 vocal people on the internet who are saying how the game sucks, or the 20 million that are non-vocal but are enjoying the game everyday and paying up for it every year day 1.

Also, look at pokemon, every year they come up with a new game which adds very little in terms of innovation but people still gobble it up (btw I myself LOVE pokemon and play it competitively, the irony lol). Even between generations, everything remains predictable.

This is unfortunately the case for many franchises that hit mass market, but COD just seems to get the hate always. Its really not their fault for not innovating, its out fault for not wanting innovation and they are giving us what we want. Simply put, we vote with out wallets.

i absolutely agree but the fact that CoD outsells just about every other gaming franchise proves that in general this opinion is not shared by the majority of gamers

Boredom and predictability are almost inevitable consequences for a series that has annual installments. COD isn't the only franchise guilty of this, but it's the only one that results in such phenomenal sales every time.

Activision ran Guitar Hero into the ground this way, but where the popularity of that series abruptly fizzled, COD doesn't look like it will suffer a similar fate any time soon, for better or worse.

ya gotta understand, IGN isn't just ONE guy, it's lots of guys.  One guy on the team may love Call of Duty, whereas the other may think it needs to change.  

Go over the top. Make Commando look like Brokeback Mountain.

Pretty obvious, all of it. This is not the only shooter that needs drastic changes and more innovation though.

with 25+ million sales and counting, I do not think Activision is concerned.

Looking at it, MW2, Black Ops and MW3 have combined for 75 million sales and that is just amazing for a non nitendo games.

It bigger then any non-nitendo series.

Nonetheless if I was Activision I would release like a spin off game which would easily get like 15+ million sales anyways and then release a new proper advance game in 2013.

I think COD does not deserve all the hate, they are the same thing over and over but it works well and is a lot of fun. The FPS campaign makes all the current ones look like small potaoes and the multiplayer is better then all other games apart from BF3 but that is only for certain gamers.

I played BF3 and it was okay, the campaign was just sad in comparison to a COD game.