No, Infinity Ward is deserving of the criticism they are slowly receiving, but I enjoy the game itself and will play the multiplayer in the future.
I bought the game last night, and even though I have not finished it, a good friend of mine has. When I saw him doing it, yes, I was disturbed, but thought that well, this probably has some good uses.
That started changing later on in the game, where both when I saw it with him playing it, and myself playing it, I thought the company missed the mark on many levels.
It is different from Grand Theft Auto-not in concept, but in execution. For all of the attention gamers place upon textures, physics engines, game music, story line, etc. etc. I find it absolutely fascinating that a good portion of these people seemingly cannot see the differences between the two games. One is certainly more cartoony than the other, the other places a great deal of attention towards a horror scene, everything from people running in terror, to the cops trying to save people's lives-defending them to the death, dragging their loved ones who are bleeding to death, people dragging themselves to safety. If one were to try to shoot the terrorists, even by accident, as I have, I was gunned down far quicker than the sequences where I am shooting at 100 people in that marketplace. Is it so incomprehensible that I can accomplish gunning down a mere 4 people from behind? Is it incomprehensible they do not give us a choice to try to affect the outcome of the situation with the same result occurring in the end?
It's all there, where as in Grand Theft Auto, it is not. This was a cinematic sequence, and would have been better compared to a film-not a game like Grand Theft Auto. If a film carried this sequence, and it was clearly meant to trigger an emotional response, I would expect them to carry that theme to other portions of the film. If they do not, I criticize the notion that it was art, or I criticize the notion it was art executed skillfully. I have always likened Call of Duty to an interactive film rather than a game due to their rigidity, and thus I approach their choices in the same way.
Furthermore, the response of the gaming community is downright pathetic. At the moment, there is very little criticism or even acknowledgment of the justification for being offended by the sequence, but rather, either complete relativism or actively engaging in desiring to do more to the civilians.
The game shows the disturbing sequences of murdering innocent civilians, how an American operative gets blame for the event, and retribution ensues. But we are treated to a more glossed over retribution, where even though it is somewhat dirty and destructive, innocent American citizens are surprisingly missing from the story, whereas in other places of the world, there they are, displayed running away being caught up in the violence (but, needless to say, little attention is set to protecting the civilians from destruction-not really punishing the gamer). American life is disrupted, but no effort is really made to display the virtue of protecting civilian lives with military means. No evacuations gone awry, no American citizens running for their lives while our men try to save them from death. The theme of the innocent civilians is not really carried out in the rest of the game.
The argument of video games as art has a problem with this game, because while it was designed to give someone an emotional response about the horrors of terrorism, that effort of art was not really carried over into the other portions of the game.
The argument of "it's just a game" is harder to argue against, for its utter fascination with moral relativism, in which the debater has no real ground to argue against other to say it is horrifying that one could be so relativistic, and thus, to the other side, is an argument filled with sensationalism and of no merit.
Thus it shall be written that the gaming community will both say that the game is of no concern by virtue of it being a game, and will defend the choice as artistic merit, only to defend the gaming community when it is seen as beneficial. Certainly the video game industry has been unfairly attacked for decades by the masses, but this game and its community are equally demonstrative of the moral depravity of the gaming community. Simply put, Infinity Ward made a bad decision with that sequence, and on various levels I find it hard to defend them on their choice.
Again, I like the game, I am glad I bought it, but I cannot be a fanboy.