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Medal of Honor should be commended for its commitment to authenticity and trying to convey the soldiers' experience using diverse points of view. With much of the media's focus on Iraq, it's good to have attention returned to the war in Afghanistan, where the US government still employs a great number of special operations forces. The game does an excellent job of showing the varied environments and illustrating the different life-threatening situations these soldiers face on a daily basis. Medal of Honor takes players from the deserts many people probably associate with the region, to city slums and snowy mountains. The game certainly doesn't suffer from a lack of unique locations and heart pounding battles.

However, something is lost in relaying the soldier's experience, namely a compelling and cohesive narrative tying everything together. Players embark on a string of missions that have them battling against seemingly impossible odds, but only a few of them provide a clear idea of what they're trying to accomplish. The two main characters, Rabbit and Adams, have such different roles that their stories are only loosely connected through coincidence. As Rabbit, players have to be precise and stealthy while Adams is often thrown right into the thick of battle. There's a running side story about how the general in charge, communicating with troops from Washington DC via satellite, is out of touch with what's actually happening on the ground, leading up to a big "No one gets left behind" situation. During the course of the game, players discover that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are bolstering their ranks with highly trained Chechen mercenaries, but none of these plot seeds grow into anything. There's no conspiracy to uncover, just a lot of enemies that need to be shot.

The game hits players with a lot of fantastic moments, like overcoming machine gun nests and holding out against waves of soldiers while taking cover behind a crumbling house. There's also a great scene where the characters decide that breaking a few bones from jumping off a foggy cliff is preferable to getting shot up by oncoming soldiers. However, there's no sense that these scenes build up to a greater story. All the character switching ends up creating the opposite effect, and as a result, we had hard time engaging with the characters.

Although the game strives for an authentic military experience, there are still plenty of features that keep the game approachable. Players recover health by ducking behind cover and squad mates replenish ammunition on request if you're using a gun you were issued and not one picked up off a fallen enemy. The game could benefit with more communication options like requesting suppressive fire so you can move from one position to the next. While squad mates do a decent job helping, there are plenty of times when the enemy is able to walk right past them and shoot you from behind. It's also the player's responsibility to take out key targets like enemies carrying rocket propelled grenade launchers before they have a chance to fire, a task that requires super fast reflexes. When all added together, it's hard to trust your computer allies to watch your back except during cutscenes, which undermines the theme of forging a bond in the heat of combat.

Players looking for a more hardcore experience are invited to try out Tier 1 mode, which is a competitive online single player mode. It's basically Medal of Honor without the training wheels, accessible only after players beat the normal campaign, where players have to beat each level within a time limit. Skill kills like headshots, multiple successive kills, and melee kills temporarily freeze the timer for a few seconds. Enemies are more difficult, health replenishes at a slower rate, allies don't carry spare ammunition, and there are no mid-level checkpoints. Dying means you have to restart the level from the beginning. Players can post their scores on an online leaderboard to prove who the most elite of the elite is.

Hardcore bragging rights might be a big draw for many, but it the multiplayer that will keep players coming back. Developed separately by DICE, there's a strong feel of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 in the multiplayer, but most of the game modes are unique to Medal of Honor. Playing as different classes individually earns each one experience and rank, which unlocks weapons and gear. With the exception of Sector Control (aka Conquest) and Team Assault (Squad Rush), the multiplayer modes emphasize using teamwork to accomplish different objectives. Combat is generally fast paced and frantic, where a single headshot can take players out in the blink of an eye. However, there's no shallow end to this pool. Jumping into the same game with experienced Battlefield players can be quite daunting and keep novice players from joining in the action.

If you're looking for an homage to the US soldiers in Afghanistan, Medal of Honor does the job, but the game falls a little short if you want memorable characters and dialogue. The single player experience provides a series of high intensity situations at the expense of character and plot development. That might be ok if your primary reason for picking up the game is for the multiplayer. Otherwise, the game is a solid shooter with plenty of features and opportunities to prove what kind of skilled player you are. In any case, we suggest waiting for a sale or for the price to drop before picking this game up.