Review Deep Dives

Does Modern Warfare 4 Live Up to Expectations?The Campaign Delivers, the Multiplayer Launch Doesn't

BC2S · 2026-10-28

0 views · 👍 0👎 0

Short version: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has two launches in its Steam reviews. The campaign opened first, and of the 240 reviews we read from that week, 90% recommend the game. Multiplayer opened on October 22, and of the 174 reviews written after that, only 42% do. The campaign is what players praise most: 227 of the 414 reviews call it one of the best in years, and Story & World ranks 233rd of 1,022 games. The later reviews turn to multiplayer: aim assist, skill based matchmaking, small maps and spawns. Overall: 81.1 / 100, the highest of the four Modern Warfare games released since 2019 that we analyzed. If you come to Call of Duty for the campaign, players say this one lives up to expectations. If you come for multiplayer, the launch reviews are split.

What we read

Digital pre-orders could play the campaign from October 16, 2026, a week before the full release (Forbes). Steam lists the release date as October 22, when multiplayer opened. We collected 500 reviews in all languages on October 24 and analyzed the 414 that had enough to read: 240 written from October 16 to 21, during campaign early access, and 174 written from October 22 to 24. Each review is scored on 25 indicators in 8 categories, from −5 to +5. How we score games.

Normally we leave out reviews from people who played less than an hour. Call of Duty counts play time in its shared launcher, so 413 of these 414 reviews show 0 hours on Steam. We made an exception for this game and kept them.

The breakdown

Overall: 81.1 / 100, 628th of 1,286 analyzed games.

Story & World is mentioned in 81% of the reviews, more than any other category, and scores +3.4. Pricing & Fairness, where matchmaking and balance complaints land, ranks in the bottom 21%.

Most multiplayer complaints here, about aim assist and matchmaking, are counted under Pricing & Fairness, in its balance and matchmaking indicators.

What players praise: the campaign

Summarized from what reviewers wrote (the number is how many reviews made the point):

• "Campaign was easily the best in years, one of the best in the franchise" (227 reviews)
• "Excellent graphics with gorgeous visuals" (30 reviews)
• "COD is actually good again after a long time" (23 reviews)
• "Weapon customization system is detailed and enjoyable" (9 reviews)

The campaign praise does not stop when multiplayer opens. 174 of the 240 early access reviews and 92 of the 174 launch reviews score the story positively. What changes after October 22 is what else players write about.

Where it falls short

• "Aim assist on console is overpowered, allows unskilled players to kill skilled PC players" (26 reviews)
• "Bloated launcher with constant restarts and UI clutter ruins experience" (22 reviews)
• "Mixing PvE and PvP with other real players creates griefing and cheating problems" (13 reviews)
• "Fewest maps at launch with mediocre quality" (8 reviews)
• "Anti-cheat requires BIOS updates and launcher hoops, making the game unplayable" (6 reviews)

These complaints come almost entirely from the launch reviews. Of the 174 reviews written after October 22, 50 complain about balance (aim assist and a few dominant weapons) and 44 about matchmaking (skill based matchmaking, spawns and small maps). In the 240 early access reviews, each of these comes up only 5 times.

The campaign has critics too. 31 reviews call the story "melodramatic," and some say it mistreats returning characters. Most of these were written during early access, when players had just finished it.

Before and after multiplayer

Steam's own numbers show the same drop. In all languages, the week from October 16 has 5,238 positive and 596 negative reviews (90%). The week from October 23 has 2,358 positive and 1,610 negative so far (59%), as of October 28.

Compared with recent Modern Warfare games

Among the Modern Warfare games released since 2019, Modern Warfare 4 has the highest score we measured: Modern Warfare (2019) 72.3, Modern Warfare II 49.2 and Modern Warfare III 59.1. Those games were analyzed from reviews written over the past year, long after their launches, so this comparison has a limit: it sets Modern Warfare 4's launch week against recent reviews of older games.

What critics say

Critics like it more than Steam players do. As of October 28, 2026, Metacritic shows a Metascore of 86, and OpenCritic a Top Critic Average of 86 with 97% of 61 critics recommending it. Game Informer (8.5/10) wrote that multiplayer "still delivers." IGN (7/10) said "a great campaign" makes it one of the better recent entries.

Like the Steam reviews, critics praise the campaign most.

By language

English reviews are the largest group (130 of 414), and 53% of them recommend the game. Chinese reviews (89) are at 57%, Russian (42) at 86% and Korean (29) at 90%. Part of the gap is timing. Most Russian and Korean reviews were written during campaign early access. Still, even among reviews written after launch, Russian (12) and Korean (11) reviews are far more positive than English (27%) and Chinese (32%).

Is there room to improve?

The launch complaints are about multiplayer tuning: aim assist, matchmaking, spawns and maps. Those are the kind of things seasonal updates change. If they do, Pricing & Fairness, which counts complaints across all reviews, would show it first.

Limits

1) These reviews come from the first eight days, including six days of campaign early access. Steam's rating is still falling, and a later look could differ.

2) Steam does not count Call of Duty play time per game, so we could not leave out reviews from people who barely played.

3) This measures what reviewers wrote, not the game itself.

4) Scores and ranks are as of October 28, 2026, among the 1,286 games we had analyzed.

BC2S. Better Creative, Better Society. We read hundreds of thousands of reviews so you can see what people really think.

Game pages: Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® 4 · Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® · Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® II · Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® III · How we score games