Now that it has been 1 week...

Thoughts on MW2 and blogs that I've read or heard over past 7 days since it's release....

Camping

I think the camping phenom is due to people trying to be better players in general.  For the most part, I think a less aggressive strategy leads to a better K2DR.  Some may call it camping, but it's really letting the noobs run around the map getting killed. A good patient player will control their kill streaks and be wise, getting that 4 which leads to a care package, which can provide a chopper which helps lead to a 5 for predator missle which leads to a helicopter or AC130 ( depending on the killstreaks you chose).

Levelling Whores

Day 2 of playing revealed not only people who got the game way early and were already in the high 40's rank, but also those who spent their first 24 hours playing the game to rank up and get all the goodies.  If you are a kid, jobless, living in your grandma's basement - this is expected.  It's hard for the rest of us who have families and jobs and can only play for small periods of time. So the playing field got a bit out of balance very early as these folks are running around with the blinged out interventions with thermal scope on Wasteland.

Glitchers

Yes, they probably popped in the game and the first thing they did was seek out exploits, like the one in the rock on Afghan.  Oh well, at least they post their videos on youtube and show IW what needs to be fixed. Consider it a final "beta" test.

The COD Religion of Skill

Being that this is now the highest selling single piece of MEDIA in all of history, you would expect that it would draw a much larger base of players.  The bell curve (of which I fall probably exactly in the middle - left side being noobs who suck and right side being Pro gamers who practice for 8 hours per day) seems to be broadening.  When I was playing COD4, I fell more on the right side of the curve, usually I would play TDM or whatever and get a decent positive K2DR say like a 20-5 which is nothing to get excited about but ok, my name showing up between 1-3.  Now I'm in the middle or lower most rounds with 13-12 or 15-15 etc.  There is a whole new breed of serious (freakily) gamer playing MW2 and all they can think about is getting better.  I'm getting better but they are finding all sorts of ways to play this game smartly.  So I learn from them by watching Youtube and such.

Final Thoughts

I don't know, I agree with other commentators, like SeaNanners on youtube who are sensing that something has changed in this game.  It used to be that COD was something somewhat underground, although taken serously, was not about giving up everything to level up your character.  Kind of feels like WOW.  Go see SECOND SKIN documentary and you'll know what I mean.

BCND out