Another change is in the class system. Those that loved the spec ops and support classes of Battlefield 2 might be sad, as those classes have been destroyed and their gear distributed among other classes. The engineer shotguns have been replaced by the sub-machineguns from the spec ops class, while recon (sniper) gets the C4. Medics now have the light machineguns of the support class, while assault gets the ammo crates. Shotguns are now global unlocks that can be used with any class, as opposed to only being used by the engineer. This class simplification is nice, and still manages to clearly delineate classes while allowing players to be more versatile in their roles.

The unlocks system is the best new part about Bad Company 2. This system is, single-handedly, the reason for buying the game. No more rising slowly through the ranks, only to get a weapon you don't want. No more waiting to get a "weapon unlock token" through the slow rank-up method. Instead, DICE has opted for a unlocks system that is class-specific. As you play the class of your choice, you gain experience towards unlocking class-specific gear as well as towards your overall rank. This means that if you love playing engineer, you will unlock all of the engineer weapons and gadgets as you play and far before you would be able to unlock them all under the old system. If you love playing medic, then you will get all your healing boosts and light machineguns before anything else. On top of the four classes, you also get experience towards vehicle unlocks by earning points in a vehicle. Finally, the rank system unlocks something new every single rank you go up, as opposed to every other rank or seemingly at random. The things it unlocks are also usable by all classes. If you thought games like Battlefield 2 or Modern Warfare were addicting in their persistent stats, you will turn into a total junkie for Bad Company 2.

The stats system is also quite cool. You have three different awards that you can earn, with each providing a bonus to your score. Pins are round-specific, and include things such as killing a certain amount of enemies without dying, getting the top score, winning the match, or getting a bunch of assists. Patches (also known as awards) are global, and take into account your stats across all games. These are things such as have squadmates spawn on you, getting a ton of explosive kills, or repairing your squadmate's vehicle a lot. Finally, there are stars for weapons and gadgets that are intended to be used offensively. Stars are an indicator of how many kills you have with the weapon, and give both tons of points and a fair amount of prestige with your fellow players. Since stars are visible under the weapon on the "killed by" bar after you have died, you can get a good feel for just how good the player is with that weapon.

The one thing we haven't touched upon at all so far is the issues. Do not get us wrong; Bad Company 2 is easily the best multiplayer shooter we've played in ages. This is, however, if you can actually get into a game. The connection issues behind Bad Company 2 are absolutely crippling, which makes playing the game a mixture of frustration and addiction. Let's say you boot up Bad Company 2 and sign into the multiplayer. Here's several of the problems, related only to connecting to a server, that can arise while you are trying to play: can't connect to EA master server, server browser freezes and doesn't populate, all servers refuse your connection, adding a server to favorites freezes the browser, randomly "kicked by admins" when no admins are on the server you are playing on, and PunkBuster issues (either booted from the game for forbidden DLL (if you are playing the Steam version) or PB INIT failure). The most frustrating is all servers refusing your connection, because you can't cancel out of connection to a server. You have to sit there for 30 seconds while the game figures out that you can't connect. Out of the 20+ hours we have played of Bad Company 2, a good 6-8 hours of it was sitting in game trying to work past connection issues. Sometimes we'd get in immediately, and other times it would take quite literally an hour. We wish we were kidding.

There's also a considerable amount of trouble outside of connection issues. Sometimes the game displays the incorrect names or icons for weapons and perks, which misleads the player. The kill/death counter in the scoreboard is always labeled as "MP_KILLS_DEATHS", obscuring text along the top. One of the most irritating errors we ran across was when the game suddenly started spitting text in the middle of the main menu. Then there are the many crashes and freezes. You can't alt-tab during the game, otherwise there's a good chance the game will crash. While playing, the game might crash to desktop, especially if the server shut down unexpectedly. If EA Online goes down while you are playing, it will show you as losing all your unlocks when your stats update (although you keep them all). The game might soft freeze, forcing you to forcibly kill the process, or hard freeze, making you restart your computer. The freezes and crashes are considerably less of an issue than the connection problems, especially since they affect random users instead of most, but still be wary.

Finally, several elements of the multiplayer interface and servers need to be fixed. Autobalance is completely broken, which means that teams need to even out manually if new players aren't joining. However, the game locks you out of switching teams for a considerable amount of time after you have switched. This lock out of switching teams even lasts between maps. The matchmaking service is terrible. It will often stick you in empty servers or servers with pings os high that you can barely play. You could end up playing on a server down the road, or you could end up playing on a server in Australia. The server browser populates all at once, which means that if you cancel a full refresh, you don't get the information for the servers that the browser has already found. There's also no quick refresh to find pings and player counts on servers you've already found.

Bad Company 2 is easily the most fun we've had in a first-person shooter within the past few years. The multiplayer is absolutely stellar, the single-player is passable, and the overall package is amazing. Every moment we played of the game we had a blast. It's a perfect game for friends to hop in and play, and the changes to the stats and unlocks system has made this the most addicting of the series to date. Unfortunately, the connection, stability, and interface issues overshadow the gameplay. After all, the gameplay might be amazing, but what use is it to us if we can't join a game? Much to our dismay, we must urge players not to buy Bad Company 2 until the issues are resolved in a future patch. The random connection issues afflicting a major portion of players drags down what would otherwise be a contender for best game of 2010.