Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 PC Review

Modern Warfare 2 and IWNet

While we can praise the singleplayer, Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer is by far the most contentious issue, following Infinity Ward’s decision to drastically alter the multiplayer experience from the previous game.

Gone are dedicated servers, console access, mod support and a raft of other features that PC gamers have long taken for granted. They’ve been replaced by a streamlined, much more restrictive service in the form of IWNet.

As the game’s launch grew ever closer more and more news sneaked to cause disdain and despair in the PC community. A maximum player cap of 18, well shy of 32 (or more with some tweaks) in the original and the loss of the ability to lean around corners followed and unsurprisingly many feel let down by the developers.

For so long PC gamers have had levels of choice and customisation that console players could only dream of and it looks as though MW2 could be the first game of many to reduce the PC multiplayer experience to that of the consoles.


However, while we fired up the game’s multiplayer with a feeling of extreme trepidation, we were immediately pleased to find that IWNet itself is almost invisible, with a friends list fully integrated into Steam’s existing model that relieved much of our “system within a system” concerns – there’s nothing like the abysmal mess that is Games for Windows Live here.

Invites to join parties are easy to fire out to a batch of your Steam friends and if a friend is already playing you’re able to connect directly to their game, although frustratingly IWNet seems to have no way to way to tell if a server is full or not, and there’s no “auto-join” option either. B’ah!

IWNet has certainly delivered on its promise to make multiplayer games much easier to get into though– just create your classes, pick a game type from the list and IWNet will find a game for you extremely quickly, dropping you into either a game in progress, or a populated lobby. While it obviously lacks almost all of the choice of a dedicated server list, it does mean finding a game is that much easier – there’s no trawling for a populated server with a decent ping, IWNet takes care of it for you.


While Modern Warfare 2 has removed some of the barriers that may have put off new players, there’s a huge lack of choice when playing a public game that we’ve no doubt will infuriate more experienced PC gamers. After joining a public game you’re dropped into a match with zero say as to the map you’re playing on, with the exact same set of rules on every single server.

Team Deathmatch games operate on a first team to 7500 points, Sabotage levels end on the first team to get a successful plant and if you don’t like playing to those rules then tough – they’re the same for every public game of that type. Like it or lump it.

Of course, Infinity Ward has included a custom match option to placate those who want to have some say as to what maps or rules they play by, but this is let down by the fact that only those in your Steam Friends list (and by proxy anyone in their list too) can join your custom game. Unless you’ve got an enormous list of Steam Friends, you’re going to struggle filling up a server even with the reduced player limit. Even when you do have a custom match underway then you won’t be able to earn an XP to advance up the game’s rankings either – that only comes in public games.

The level of customisation for custom matches is excellent however, with the ability to tweak and adjust just about everything from disabling kill streaks, adjusting player health and there’s even a “only headshots count” option. It’s just a shame that you’re still thwarted by other elements of IWNet.