Short answer? No.

Long answer? No.

I'll start by reviewing the single player campaign. If I have to describe the single player with one word, it will have to be this: "DULL".

My god, the single player is truly awful, average and dull. The gameplay is boring, the story line is almost non existent and at times, the campaign can be as annoying as hell. The game is also not balanced with parts of the campaign being too easy while other choke points are pure trial and errors (ie. die, try again, die, try again, die try again etc). The problem is that often you do not know who and where the bullets or grenades are coming from and its difficult to tell who is ally and who is foul. This problem existed in COD4 single player campaign and its downright pure arrogance that they didn't fix this because they were too busy trying to 1up Infinity Ward. In fact, there are MANY COD4 flaws that aren't fixed in this game but more on that later.

The shortness of the campaign is actually a blessing because by the time you tried 2 or 3 missions, you would be so bored, you want to move on to multi player. Its safe to say that the multi player is the meat and body of the whole game but nevertheless this does not mean this somehow legitimates a sub par single player campaign. Actually, who am I kidding. The campaign is boring but the shortness of the campaign is not a positive. Its a point deductor. Period.

The whole Japanese/ East China Sea, Pacific Island World war 2 setting is a nice change from the previous COD campaigns. Unfortunately for Treyarch, this is not a positive point either. The whole Pacific warfare campaign is a turn off and the whole setting just screams BORING all the time. If it weren't for the Russian-German campaign and the Nazi zombie mode, I wouldn't have finished the single player! That being said, the Russian-German story mode is also not that fun to play with, although the East German/ Poland/ Russia setting makes for great multi player maps.

The music, voice overs and soundtrack do not stand out. In fact, they are often times annoying and do not immerse the player into the story. Rather than trying to immerse the player, they actually ANNOY the player. I swear, if I hear the word "Banzai!" again, I'll throw that Blu Ray disc against the wall! Don't worry people, its Blu Ray. It can take a beating (though I'm not responsible for any stupidity on your part).

All in all, the single player is a sub par experience with a short campaign thats also boring and I would not rate it higher than a 7. That being said, lets move on to the real meat and body of the game.

The multi player mode. Ah where to start. The multi player is as you would expect and its almost identical as COD4s multi player so people feel right at home jumping in. There are more perks, tweaks have been made and different weapons. I say different because most of the weapons really don't feel much better than COD4s. Most of the weapons feel ineffective. And they just don't have that awesomeness feel like some of the weapons in COD4 had. Although I admit, the flamethrower seem pretty neat.

The game uses the same engine as COD4 and retains the same kind of gameplay as COD4. This is, of course, a positive, seeing how well COD4 played.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is not the only thing thats similar as COD4. Because so are the BUGS and the ANNOYANCES. For example, everyone knows the high grass in COD4 are mediocre 2D grass models (downright terrible vegetation models and other small object models). Vegetation in World at war is equally mediocre. I mean c'mon this is 2008 here. People overlooked it back in 2007 because COD4 was so fun to play with but you would think that after a whole year and with 2-3 years of development time, they would have at least fixed this. Well guess what, they didnt. Other examples, includes shadows of objects (Treyarch: "whats anti-aliasing?"), dropping into games and the game ends 10 seconds later, spawning right into dog attack or artillery, characters walking right into walls etc.

Here is the thing however. Its 2008 and almost 2009. There are TONS of Triple A titles out there. We don't have to settle for average mediocrity here. COD4 came out over a year ago. Treyarch had a whole year extra to improve the engine. Now if this is what they come up with, than its downright arrogance and ignorance of their part. If you think a game will get points for this, you're out of your mind.

Mediocre 2d models aren't the only things that pissed me off. Often the controls are clunky and the "I see the enemy, I'm trying to back down and hide slowly, unfortunately some object is blocking my way and can't move and got shot down because I cant see what is blocking my path" annoyances- returns. What Treyarch should have done, is spend time thinking and fixing all these annoying issues. Instead they devoted all their time into thinking how to 1up Infinity Ward (which clearly in their minds meant the art style).

The maps are a plus and a minus at the same time. You will love some maps but HATE plenty of others. To me, the Pacific Island settings, and the whole Japanese palace & courtyard maps are a huge turn off with the exception of 'Cliff side'. Those settings are nice, if you want to book a 2 week vacation! The maps are terrible for multi player. Most of these maps are not fun to play with and are extremely confusing. They tried to make the maps complicated and deep but ended up making the maps TOO COMPLICATED. Often, most maps feel like a maze and they are huge maps as well. And because there are so many details around every corner, its just too complicated to play. The East German maps, however, have that "urban feeling" and comes very close to the COD4 feeling. Those maps are quite enjoyable and fresh. Unfortunately, the same annoying fact in COD4 with the maps returns in this game. If you only play a few modes, expect to play in the same mediocre maps all the time while the really good maps only pop up once every red moon. Yes, every time you join a game, its almost always THAT mediocre map that you don't like. This is an extremely annoying thing in COD4. But it returns in World at war. I'm my opinion, its pure arrogance and laziness that they didn't even bother trying to fix this. Huge turn off.

The art style is perhaps the best thing in this game. Clearly Treyarch spend most of their time in this area trying to 1up Infinity Ward. Many maps (IMO especially the German location ones) have beautiful art styles and offer different ways to play. Plenty of places for close quarter combat while some of the maps are huge with many places to hide. The lighting on some of the maps are beautiful but not something that we haven't seen before.

Its hard to pinpoint exactly whats wrong with this game and why it is not COD4. Another point that pissed me off, is the artillery fire. The artillery fire is annoying as hell. Every time its used, you hear this really (and I mean REALLY) annoying tune. This tune is so annoying, it gets to you, you know. It gets stuck in your head and you downright curse everytime you hear the tune. Also, artillery strike also influences characters on screen. Even if you aren't hit by it, your character become uncontrollable like as if someone just threw flash grenade. Its annoying and you end up being a sitting duck. Its a huge turn off.

Since I'm talking about artillery here, I might as well mention the dog attack. They replaced the chopper with the dog attack which from what I can tell is equally effective. Dog attacks are quite annoying and overpowered if you ask me. Annoying because you dont know where the dogs are coming from. All you hear are dogs barking and someone warns you in the beginning if you are close by. You cannot see dogs in the radar. They are overpowered because two hits from 1 dog will kill you and because they are hard to hit. Overpowered also because the load is not even. Sometimes you hear dogs, you encounter none while other times, you had to fend off 5 of them at once. Overpowered clearly because I called dogs once, and the dogs killed 8 times for me (granting me another dog attack). While I was hunting on my own. Like I said, its overpowered.

The same problem exists with some of the weapons. Some weapons are easy to handle and easy to use. Others are downright hard to aim, take 100 bullets to kill and are hard to play with. Maybe its me, but the balance seems missing.

The vehicle combat offer nothing special and is not exactly fun to play. What I noticed from my own experience with the game is that by including it in certain maps, one of the two things happen: the balance of power either shifts completely to one side or the fast intense action we have come to love so much, slows down considerably. These are not positive points in case you were wondering.

To come to a conclusion, COD World at war is a fun multi player game. If you loved COD4, you will like World at war. Unfortunately Treyarch has spent too much time in the wrong areas of the game while not fixing the many things that should have been fixed. I don't know what they were thinking but in 2008, with so many Triple A games, that is unacceptable.

The tweaks they DID made, are not as fun as the simpler COD4. Furthermore, a lot of maps are not fun to play with because either the setting is a turn off or are too complicated, somewhat maze like feeling. They all look pretty though but 40 thousand oil drums, little rocks, snake formed spiraling corners, high walls, it just feels a little too big for a 6v6 or a 12v12 battle.

And oh yea, 150 kills with 2 guns achieved. So where's my freakin' blue/ red print? There aren't any paint jobs for guns as far as I can tell. This will also be a turn off for many COD4 fans. Let's just hope the golden guns make a return because I already have 200 head shots.

Closing comments: while the multi player is fun, its not as good as COD4.

Final score multi player: 8