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It's difficult to look Modern Warfare in the eye without glancing at the long shadow that trails behind it. The small library of gradually worsening sequels and annual follow-ups, the abysmal Medal of Honor games and all the other middling to poor efforts at competition that defined the next half-decade of first-person shooters ( Terrorist Takedown anyone?). There's a sense that the modern/near-future warfare craze was more than a little distasteful. A celebration of controversial glories, entertainment riffing off conflicts and disasters from which the sand had barely settled. It's perhaps why the frankly average shooter Spec-Ops: The Line generated so much discussion simply by addressing the ethically dubious qualities found within these games.
This entire genre shift, and all the issues that came with it, can be traced back to Modern Warfare. Yet despite its legacy I've always felt that Infinity Ward's first attempt at translating Call of Duty into a contemporary setting stood apart from the mess that later games made of it. Firstly because in design, pacing and execution it soars above anything that followed in its wake. But it's also down to how Modern Warfare deals with the subject matter.
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