Black Ops is a really good game.

No, they never will be longer than a few hours. It was fun though - still a tightly scripted, hold my hand and follow the waypoint game of coruse.

Because the vast majority of gamers don't give a damn about Kotick or Activision Blizzard. They just want to play a game. Black Ops basically keeps everything MW2 did right, and fixes everything it did wrong. There are dedicated servers (limited to a specific provider, but still), there's more balance of weapons/kill streaks, there are new game modes, a better class/customization system, zombie/horde mode, full-featured hidden games..

For people who like the shooting mechanics of the CoD series, buying Black Ops is a no-brainer: it's better than MW2 in every conceivable way, and that's why it's selling like wildfire.

Good games sell well, regardless of publisher.

Exactly... fps games aren't rpg games.  They don't have 100+ hours of single player content because they are primarily meant to be multiplayer.  Complaining that Black Ops only has 6 hours of single player content is like complaining that Dragon Age: Origins is absolutely terrible because it has 0 multiplayer features.

Perhaps my analogy wasn't as good as it could have been.  Sure they can complain about flaws.. but when the flaws aren't there at all, it's hard to see the validity of complaining about them.  

 

Here's hopefully a better comparison:  Does a scooter work as a form of transportation?  Yes.. but was that the main focus of the product?  No... so why complain that it doesn't get you from town A to town B as fast as your car?  

It took me eight hours to beat Black Ops on Heroic, and assuming I do not jump out the window attempting it, I imagine the top difficulty will take me ten or more, most of it spent crying as I die over and over.

Also, I agree that the multiplayer is excellent. The best way I can sum it up is as WaW and MW combined, with a lot of MW2 touch ups. So, you know, the best of the best combined.

Also, a little bit of homework for anyone who is interested; let us know about any primarily FPS games that have campaigns longer than ten hours. Please note that Fallout 3 (Blech) and New Vegas do not count, being RPGs with an FPS touch stretched over them.

I haven't played it in a while, but I think the original Crysis campaign might be getting to that mark. Something like BioShock is also longer - it's also a bit of an RPG/FPS blend, but more heavily on FPS than RPG.

The Halo games (fair since Black Ops is also on console) are also typically longer than 10 hours to beat, especially on the Legendary difficulty.

Some stealth games have longer campaigns too, like MGS or Splinter Cell, or the old Rainbow 6 games...

All in all, though, these differences aren't dramatic, and the length is still in the 10s of hours rather than 20+. Pure FPS games just aren't built for long drawn out stories, in most cases. 

I've seen plenty of reviews with critique I agree with. I think

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/reviews/2010/11/call-of-duty-black-ops-pc-review-fun-game-with-a-broken-leg.ars

gave the best view of the game.

Perhaps flaws was a poorly chosen word. I should have said "shortcomings". Personally I agree with you, and I also think that a short GOOD singleplayer experience is far better than a long boring one (ie - length is not the only factor).

All I'm saying is, people have a right to complain about it. It's a fair assessment that the single player is short. If you're looking for a long (or even medium length), good single player experience, this is not the game for you.

Clearly they've put considerable resources behind the single player campaign, so I absolutely do NOT agree with you that the game was "designed specifically for multiplayer". Saying that is simply a cop-out, an excuse for a poor part of the game.

Again, it seems like you wish people who think the storydriven parts were too short should just go away. But I, on the other hand, prefer to read such comments just as much as I like reading about features in a game. Together, they'll give me a good picture of what's actually in a product.

The fact that single players seems to get shorter and shorter could be an indication that FPS makers might consider making 2 versions of a game, one specifically for multiplayer and one specifically for single player. To be honest I think this could be a good idea. I jumped into multiplayer first as soon as I installed the game. I tried the single player for a round or 2 but eventually went back to multiplayer. Heck, I haven't even tried zombie mode yet.

 

There was a patch today or yesterday (forgot the time stamp on the post on Kotaku), and folks are claiming much improved performance in general on PC. Don't know about disconnects.

Haha, IGN just did an Article wrapping up the best CoD Campaigns; Modern Warfare 2 - their highest rated CoD title - didn't even make the top five.  Such a joke when their review described it as the best First Person Shooter ever made, and then a year later they consider it - and I quote - a "... disorganized and confused mess..."

In any case, I'm playing through my friend's copy of Codblops now - he finished it in just over 5 hours apparently, and thought it was "worth a rental, but too short and too much like Lost".  Anyway, I only own one Call of Duty - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and Black Ops fails to beat it.  The single player campaign is presented in a way that makes you feel like you never actually play.  Every 10 or so seconds control seems to be yanked away from you so you can't fuck up one of their scripted sequences, then you run through a few rooms, shooting guys till the next scripted sequence.  Modern Warfare walked the fine line between watching the game and playing the game - Black Ops just doesn't get the right ratio, and I too often I'm wiggling the control sticks to see if it's my turn to play yet.

The production values are on par with Modern Warfare, but the graphic's engine is showing it's age a bit too much.  With the exception of the primary cast, the textures feel muddy and blurry, lacking any real detail.  The sound lacks the punch of something like Bad Company 2, and game seems to think throwing in "Fortunate Son" - with illogical fade ins - consitutes setting the scene.  It has it's moments - the prison break was decent enough - however, it's simply too much excess and too much violence for violence sake - stealth segments last around three seconds (seriously) and simply provide the game with a way for you to watch a very graphic kill.  The prison break trasitions from unarmed prisoners fighting against their captors to you escaping on a motor bike in slow motion, firing a shotgun and reloading it with one hand just like Arnold in Terminator 2.  All in the span of about five minutes.

It's hard to be invested when everything is so comical - Ice Cube speaking Russian has to be a series low point - and so over-blown and yet I have basically zero control over any of it.  Multiplayer feels too samey; I already bought Modern Warfare.

In my opinion Black Ops was just brought out to suck dry the wallets of MW1 and MW2 fanboys.. Nothing against those games, but the fanboys make me homicidal.