Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 [Hardened Edition]

Activision Blizzard's top-selling first-person shooter franchise marches on with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Players must deal with the fallout from the devastating attacks on U.S. and British soil in a storyline that picks up where 2009's Modern Warfare 2 left off. The single-player campaign has you battling Russian ultranationalists, led by Vladimir Markov, as members of the U.S. Delta Force and British SAS. You'll battle across war-torn areas of New York City, London, Paris, Mogadishu, Dubai, and other regions as you prepare to end the global threat once and for all.

As with previous entries in the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 3's campaign features a heavily scripted, cinematic experience with Hollywood-style special effects. One new mission, for example, has you involved in underwater travel with a sonar-equipped submersible watercraft. You'll then fight inside an enemy-controlled submarine before guiding an inflatable raft across turbulent waters while a naval battle rages nearby. Other sequences have you firing mounted guns, driving vehicles, and more while explosions light up the landscape.

Returning to the game is the cooperative Spec Ops mode that features a series of standalone missions on different maps. New to Spec Ops is a survival option that has you and either a friend or a computer partner battling waves of enemy forces. Shooting down enemies earns you cash, which can be used to purchase new perks, items, weapons, and other upgrades. You'll also be able to earn bonuses by working together as a team and maintaining kill streaks.

The heart of the game is once again the 18-player online component, which introduces all-new maps and a variety of enhancements to the format introduced in Modern Warfare 2. Popular features such as kill-streak awards, experience points, weapons-based achievements, and perks return, allowing you to customize your character as you progress. An optional subscription service entitled "Call of Duty Elite" will allow players to track detailed statistics such as win-loss records, kill-death ratios, time played, most successful maps, favorite weapons, and much more.

Hardened Edition bonus items include a Steelbook case, collectible field journal, special ops juggernaut outfit for your Xbox Live avatar, premium membership to Call of Duty Elite, and special founder status on Call of Duty Elite. Call of Duty Elite's premium membership includes all future downloadable content (DLC) for Modern Warfare 3, of which there are 20 pieces of DLC expected within the first nine months following the game's release.