Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Review

Modern Warfare 3 closes the original trilogy the way a season finale closes a network drama: professionally, loudly, and without a single surprise in its pockets. The campaign's globe-hopping World War III delivers its Eiffel Tower collapse and a satisfying end for Makarov, and Soap's death lands as well as the script allows, but the mission design runs on rails the 2007 game laid and never once risks a Ghillies or a Clean House.

Built by Infinity Ward post-exodus with Sledgehammer's heavy support, it is the sound of a franchise consolidating rather than creating. Multiplayer refined sensibly, strike packages let non-killers contribute, and Kill Confirmed remains a great mode, on maps that mostly lack the previous game's iconography. Survival mode was a fine consolation for no zombies. Nothing here is broken; everything here is beige. The B row is earned in every column, the grade for excellence of execution in service of pure inertia.