I've played about 3 hours today.  About 1.5 hour for single player campaign and 1.5 hour for multiplayer.  I was awed by Modern Warfare 1.  Then I was awed by Killzone 2.  Next I was awed by Uncharted 2. 

I felt this game failed to raise the bar.  I saw that other critics such as IGN rated the graphics for MW2 as 10 out of 10.  I can't disagree more.  I was hoping to be blown away by the graphics.

I heard the campaign is very short ~ 5 hours.  So far, the story telling is too fractured. 

The multi-player is great.  No complaints here. 

Well, I don't know if you knew but.. Call of Duty has always been a multiplayer based game.
Don't expect too much from singleplayer.

I think many gamers are disappointed, user reviews for this game are very, very low

It's true the Call of Duty has always been a primarily multi player game but the quality for the single player campaign has always been very high. However, while the multi player is fun in MW2, I'm somewhat disappointed with the single player campaign as well.

If you are referring to those 5/10s from the metacritic website, and a few other sources, those are admittedly from the PC fans signing the anti MW2 petition mostly ran by bots. In fact, even the shittiest games have user-reviews in the 6-10 range due, as long as there isn't a faction attempting to lowers those reviews in protest. A bad metacritic user-review average with no faux entries would be around an 8. Not a 5. That's obviously tampering. :P I hope you are referring to a few cherrypicked user reviews, and not those numbers. :P

As far as people being dissapointed...this is one of the biggest games of all time, and one of the most hyped. It got amazing review scores, but like all popular games there will be a subculture designed to bash and discredit it, and this forum along with a few others, is their only outlet, so you won't get a fair sample. They tend to be more vocal.

Rest assured that you ARE in the minority of gamers that will consider themselves dissapointed in this game. The vast majority of the public are mind-numbed drones who will think any game that is actually good, is the second coming of god, and this game will live on in infamy through their praises.

The game itself is good, the graphics are fine(which seem to be the focus of your thread) but it isn't god incarnate, I don't know what you were expecting.

On metacritics, MW2 rivals Uncharted 2, LittleBigPlanet, and GTA4.... which is absurd. This game is above average, but not one of the best. The engine feels dated, and the graphics are very good but not excellent.

i would give this game an 8 or 8.5 honestly.
these users must be really disappointed because although the single player is not bad, the multi is pretty good (as usual).

mehh....whatever!!

Graphics don't have anything to do with the quality of a game. Elite Beat Agents is as good, in my opinion, as any game on your list, and it's graphics are shitty. OOT is one of the best games of all time, and it's graphics are terrible. Crysis has far better graphics than anything you've listed, and good gameplay, but it's nowhere near as good as MW2.

I don't know why you're so hung up on graphics. The graphical presentation is fine. The game is v-synced at 60fps. It can only look so good on a console, and as good as the graphics are, it's actually stunning that IW was able to achieve those things. Imagine if you V-synced Drakes Fortune and then tried to actually play it.

The game is graphically impressive because of what it is able to achieve with performance on consoles at such a high level of graphical fidelity(vlock, 30-60fps, onscreen action that isn't wallpaper, ect), and that's why it got such high graphical scores, imho.

lol...3 hours dude. Give it atleast a week.

I played it for almost a week now as a freind obtained a leaked copy. The game is not dissapointing. Single player game is somewhat dissapointing if you ask me but thats down to preferences. I like freedom in FPS games and MW2 has very little of that.

But spec ops levels are kick ass and even has coop.

Multiplayer too is like...damn dude. Better that COD4 and that is a huge achievement.

Remember...thsi game costs as much as Tekken 6 and Need fo Speed Shift. Which one is a bigger dissapointment for 60 bucks?

gosh I awed myself with gamecube graphics most of the time... I also saw the cod4 trailer and I think is a 10 in graphics...

I saw the trailers for all the special and hyped games and I keep saying to myself (this is a 10.5 in graphics)... I should start buying ps3 games so I dont have to explode... with these new engines and whatnot... for the next generation so I dont get lost with (whats good or whats bad)