Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 received "universal acclaim" for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, and "generally positive" reviews for the PC version, according to
review aggregator website
Metacritic.
1UP.com stated "Mixing real-world locations with bombastic set-pieces
MW2 continues the guided, thrill-ride experiences of its predecessor, and adds even more depth to its multiplayer offerings. It might not have fixed all the problems from the first game, but there's just so much quality content packed into this game that it will almost certainly be one of the most-played games in your library for a long time to come".
Game Informer noted praised the game for its polish and iteration on the series, as well as its strong presentation and wealth of playable content.
IGN called it a "no-brainer purchase", thanks to its online multiplayer, its co-op mode, and its campaign.
Computer and Video Games called the game "Loud, epic and incredibly polished, [and] this year's biggest must-have shooter". Criticism of the game focused on the short length of the single player campaign.
IGNs Mark Bozon remarks that the single-player of "
Modern Warfare 2 is surprisingly short, and doesn't live up to the standard set by previous
Call of Duty games." In addition, many reviewers have complained about the lack of innovation to the formula of the series. The game's Windows version was also criticized for lacking dedicated servers and being powered by IWNet. Infinity Ward went on to state that it would lack
console commands, not support larger than 18 player
multiplayer matches, or allow players to ban
cheaters. Ben Kuchera of
Ars Technica commented that, "at launch, this will be one of the most locked-down, inflexible, and gamer-unfriendly games ever created", Nevertheless, in response, Mike Griffiths,
CEO of Activision, claimed that the omission of dedicated servers would offer an "easier multiplayer experience". While only 3% of the game's sales came from the Windows version in the UK, it still outsold the Windows version of
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in its first week. Some game journalists accused the developers of
cultural insensitivity, citing the use of
Arabic rather than
Urdu on signs and banners in the
Karachi multiplayer map, based on the real-life city of
Karachi in Pakistan. An
Easter egg in the game's
tutorial level in which one soldier asks another soldier about his sexuality, and then remarks "
don't ask, don't tell", led to further criticism, though some journalists considered the reaction to the line overblown.
Famitsu named
Modern Warfare 2 as the number one game on the top 10 video games sold in 2009, beating games such as
Metal Gear Solid 4,
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves,
Halo 3 and
Grand Theft Auto IV. It also gave the game a score of 39/40, being one of the few Western games released in Japan to have the same score as
Grand Theft Auto IV. In 2011, readers of ''
Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition'' voted Simon "Ghost" Riley as the 40th-top video game character of all time.
Sales and revenue According to preliminary sales figures from Activision,
Modern Warfare 2 sold approximately 4.7 million units in the United States and the UK combined in the first 24 hours of its release. The total revenue from first day sales in the U.S. and the UK was $310 million, making
Modern Warfare 2 the biggest entertainment launch in history at the time, surpassing in revenue its previous record holder,
Grand Theft Auto IV, as well as items from other media types. After five days of sales, the game had earned revenue figures of $550 million worldwide. , it has taken over $1 billion in sales. Activision also claims that
Modern Warfare 2 had 8 million players online within the first five days, constituting the largest 'army' of players in the world. On March 8, 2010,
Robert Bowling announced that the game had amassed 25 million unique players. In June 2010, Activision's CFO Thomas Tippl revealed that the game had sold 20 million copies. In August 2011, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg revealed that the game had sold 22 million copies. A month later in September 2011,
Modern Warfare 3 producer Mark Rubin, said that the game's number (not confirmed as players or sales) was between 28 and 29 million. In November 2013,
IGN put the game's sales at 22.7 million. According to the
NPD Group,
Modern Warfare 2 sold approximately 4.2 million units for the Xbox 360 and 1.87 million units for the PlayStation 3 in the U.S. during the month of November 2009. In Japan,
Modern Warfare 2 sold 64,000 copies for the PlayStation 3 and 42,000 copies for the Xbox 360 in its first week of sales. The game later sold 117,000 copies on the PlayStation 3 and 61,000 on the Xbox 360. Anita Frazier of the NPD Group reported in March 2010 that the game had sold slightly under 10 million copies in the U.S. alone. The game had also become the second best-selling game of all time in both the UK and the U.S. After it became backward compatible with the Xbox One, the NPD Group reported that
Modern Warfare 2 was the eighth-best selling video game in the United States during August 2018. It had sold more copies in that month than the then-most recent entry in the series,
Call of Duty: WWII, which came out in November 2017. During the previous month, before becoming backward compatible,
Modern Warfare 2 was at only number 321 on the best sellers list.
Awards Modern Warfare 2 received awards from various gaming sites and publications, it gained high praise from some video game magazines. At the
2009 Spike Video Game Awards,
Modern Warfare 2 received the Best Shooter and Best Multiplayer awards. Both
GameSpy and
GameTrailers gave the game the
Best Overall Game of 2009 award and received from
GameTrailers six awards overall.
GameSpot and
Metacritic, both gave it the
Best Xbox 360 Game award, and from
GameTrailers received the game the
Best Multiplayer award including the
Best First-Person Shooter award. At the
6th British Academy Games Awards, it won the
GAME Award which was selected via a public vote.
"No Russian" controversy In the campaign's "No Russian" level, the player controls an
undercover CIA agent who participates in a
mass shooting at a
Moscow airport to gain the trust of a Russian
terrorist group. It begins with the player walking out of an elevator with four other gunmen, who proceed to open fire on a large group of civilians at a
security checkpoint. However, the player is never forced to partake in the massacre, and may instead let their comrades kill the civilians. If the player does not feel comfortable during the level, they are allowed to skip to the next level with no penalties whatsoever. Prior to the game's release, footage taken from "No Russian" was leaked on the Internet. Some journalists decided to wait until they could actually play the level to judge its merits. After the game's release, the level was largely criticized for allowing players to partake in a terrorist attack. Vince Horiuchi of
The Salt Lake Tribune felt that the level was in poor taste following the
2009 Fort Hood shooting, and questioned why its content couldn't have been shown in a non-interactive
cutscene. Marc Cieslak of
BBC News was saddened by "No Russian", as he felt it disproved his theory that the
video game industry had "grown up". Several prominent British religious leaders condemned the level in an episode of
The Big Questions:
Alexander Goldberg of the
London Jewish Forum was worried that children would play it; Fazan Mohammed of the
British Muslim Forum described it as an intimate experience of enacting terrorism; and
Stephen Lowe, the retired
Bishop of Hulme, felt that it was "sickening". In the same episode,
Network N executive James Binns instead argued that the game had been appropriately classified as 'mature' (18+) and that it was therefore at the discretion of guardians to safeguard their children: "This is an adult piece of entertainment. We can make all entertainment for children, or we can take proper steps to try and protect children from adult entertainment." Due to the level's graphic content, the game was censored in international versions, and the level was removed entirely from the Russian version.
Retrospective reviews Retrospective assessments rank
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as one of the best games in the franchise, The game's multiplayer was praised for expanding on
Modern Warfare with restructured loadout and perk systems, additional killstreaks and progression challenges, and new weapons that allowed for cinematic moments for players, such as sniper "quick-scoping". The map design was also commended; several of the game's multiplayer maps, such as Terminal and Rust, became fan-favorites. Nevertheless, several acknowledged unbalancing issues that made the mode frustrating to play at times and even game-breaking, particularly noting the Tactical Nuke killstreak and "noob-tubing" grenade launchers. Critics have also highlighted
Modern Warfare 2 cooperative Spec Ops mode as one of the series' best modes. ==Remastered version==