Call of Duty 4 does the whole ‘cinematic first-person shooter’ thing, something Infinity Ward is known for, extremely well; better, maybe, than any shooter. It’s full of great set pieces, some of the best scripted events in gaming, and most importantly, it feels almost frighteningly realistic in its depictions of war zones in the modern-day Middle East. The sound design is impeccable; those of you with surround sound and some confidence with the volume knob will cower when a jet cuts through the air over your head and drops bombs onto enemies in front of you, and the graphics are some of the best in any game released to date. If you thought Call of Duty 2 was chaotic you’ve got some real surprises in store when you play through 4.

It really does have great presentation and production values. The engineers at Infinity Ward have done some masterful work on this game, getting it to run at 60 frames-per-second looking like it does on both Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. Like Bungie did with Halo 3, they also have refreshingly sparing and delicate use of various effects, only made possible on current-gen systems, like HDR lighting, motion blur, and depth of field. It’s good to see developers starting to get the hang of this stuff.

It’s very much the video game equivalent of the most recent Transformers film - wonderful to look at and hugely entertaining, but ultimately a shallow experience. All of the awesome stuff that happens in Call of Duty 4 (and there is a lot of it) is either stuff that’s shown to the player, or stuff it forces the player to do. Whereas in, say, Halo 3, when you do awesome stuff it’s because you made the choice to. You chose to stick that guy with a grenade then hijack a vehicle and take a group of enemies down with it. There’s no sandbox in Call of Duty 4. There’s nothing wrong with having great scripted events, but they need the gameplay to be at least as entertaining to back them up, and in this game’s case, they overshadow it. There really isn’t anything to the gameplay except testing how well you can point at enemies and pull the trigger. The guns do feel very good, and it is fun, but it’s a far cry from the deep, exciting gameplay other shooters from this year offer.

There’s also issues with the pacing of the game. The main problem is not that it’s too short (although it is short - about six hours from beginning to end on the default difficulty setting), it’s that many of the levels in the game are too short. Just as you get situated in an environment and with a weapon load out, you’re escorted out of it and onto the next. There’s also random difficulty spikes throughout the game, and this difficulty feels artificial in the first place. It’s not as if the AI is that smart, just large in numbers and can throw a grenade at your feet from a hundred yards.

The multiplayer levels are well designed; there’s no major balancing issues to be found, and the interface is the only one to rival Halo 3’s. What makes the multiplayer stand out the is the ability to customize your weapons and the leveling and perk systems that make it extremely addictive. Expect to spend many late nights with this game online.

Call of Duty 4 is another beautiful, thrilling shooter from Infinity Ward, but while its multiplayer is good (although your money may be better spent on Halo 3 or Team Fortress 2), its single player does little to poke its head out above the others released this year.