Makarov is back, the machine starts up again, and yet something rings hollow.

When the community picks on gut feeling, with no criterion attached, Modern Warfare III only edges out 13% of the games. That's low. And the detail confirms it more than it rescues it. Art direction sits right at the bottom, ahead of just 3% of titles, the desert island question barely better at 4%, and the soundtrack near the floor too. The one place the game lifts its head is with a controller in hand: gameplay lands just above the middle of the pack, and attachment climbs back toward the median. That's the portrait: a shooter that works while you're playing it, and leaves almost nothing behind. Careful though, several of these lines rest on a handful of votes, so the extremes are still to be confirmed.

That's the paradox of the big-budget annual shooter. The gunfeel is calibrated to the millimetre, the content is massive, sixteen maps at launch plus the Zombies mode, and none of it answers the questions this place asks. Nobody wonders whether the game runs well. They wonder whether you miss it.

So who is it for? For you if you want the comfort of a shooting system you read instantly, multiplayer, co-op, and no story to carry. Much less so if you're after a game you'll still remember in ten years, or a visual and sonic identity that grabs you.