So I've spent some time with this game and I think it's my favorite since CoD4. The story is hilariously bad and packed with straight-up offensive bull****, but it also has some genuinely interesting movements in the direction of organic Deus Ex style (rather than Mass Effecty MAKE A BIG DECISION) choice, complete with unclear consequences and endings contingent on more than just the final branch. It's jingoistic and violent in a way that maps to fantasies of realism rather than any genuine inclination towards naturalism, but it also seems self-aware about how stupid it is (horses vs. tanks, a level with a sword, a level where you're the villain and invincible and you have a bottomless shotgun clip and find yourself compelled to charge forward screaming your sister's name on loop) and willing to wink and play along.
The villain is about as sympathetic as any of the other characters, and while the world postulated by Black Ops 2 seems to consist of a Sophie's Choice between murderous pro-quo thugs and murderous anti-quo thugs, at least it seems to offer a hint of criticism of the consequences of American interventionism in both the military and economic domains. The game's conflict is fundamentally about our clumsy attempts to make things better creating our own worst enemies.
While there's lip service to economic inequality and the 99%, and you'd be forgiven for thinking the game is about this stuff, the narrative actually cares very little about economic inequality or Anonymous or Occupy Wall Street except as a generic boogeyman. The real threat here, again and again, is the possibility that the mechanism of our own superiority applied without care or consideration of consequence can be turned back on us. Menendez and Cordis Die aren't about the fear of the 99% or brown people; they're about the fear of our own jetliners.
I'm also a fair bit better at the multiplayer now so that's a bit more fun.
