It’s never been more clear that Modern Warfare 3 was meant to be an MW2 expansion

In October 2022, leaks began to circulate that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would receive a DLC expansion in 2023, featuring campaign missions and multiplayer maps.

Regardless of what Activision would try to tell you, that DLC just released—except it’s been repurposed, retooled, and spit-shined so the powers that be could charge $70 for it. Hello, “Modern Warfare 3.”

MW3 hasn’t fully come out yet, but what we know about it already seems to paint the picture that the leaks were true, and not just because they were corroborated by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that in 2023 “they’ll be selling new stuff for MW2, an expansion or something like that.”

In November 2022, Activision revealed CoD 2023 would be a “full premium release.” And all that really means is a premium price tag. What we’re getting in MW3 clearly did not start out as a full-fledged CoD title, and Schreier said as much in February of this year.

After playing through it in early access, MW3’s campaign is painfully short, even by Call of Duty standards. CoD campaigns never last too long but are usually fun, exciting, explosive playthroughs for a good while until multiplayer comes out.

But MW3’s campaign feels shorter than ever. Most players are finishing it in about three or four hours and that’s just not good enough, especially when compared to the standards of other single-player games these days, whether “no one cares about CoD campaigns” or not.

The campaign has 15 total missions, sure, but six of them are Open Combat Missions (five of those are just playable ads for the new Warzone map) and two of them (Deep Cover and Passenger) are basically just playable cinematics that are finished in five minutes or less.

The Open Combat Missions feel cobbled together. They are played on Warzone maps like Verdansk or Urzikstan and have simple objectives. They lack the fully-rendered cutscenes and polish of the other missions in the game, and the campaign feels disjointed because of it, likely because Sledgehammer Games was forced to change plans in the past year or so.

Not to mention the game’s “ending,” which is an out-of-nowhere and abrupt cliffhanger that would’ve greatly suited an MW2 DLC and set the stage for the real MW3. But instead, it feels like a CoD experience that’s lackluster.

And how about MW3 multiplayer? It’s basically MW2 multiplayer with the speed turned up, weapon visibility fixed, and the ability to slide cancel returned. The maps? They were all released in 2009 and, while that’s exciting, it seems like something that easily could’ve been slapped together within the past year. The weapons? The vast majority of them are brought forward from MW2.

And how about Zombies mode. It’s also an extension of the Warzone map. There’s no round-based Zombies experience, the traditional way to play the mode that players love. Players are simply thrown into Urzikstan and have to kill zombies and complete objectives on the Warzone map, just like Open Combat Missions.

I give CoD developers so much credit. There was no doubt a rush and a panic to turn what started as a smaller expansion into a large-scale, full, “premium” game. They busted their asses and did their best and I commend them, but it’s clear that a lot happened behind the scenes with MW3’s development.

Is it worth $70? Time will tell, and the game will likely grow and get better over time with seasonal content including more maps, guns, and other exciting content. I know one thing, though: MW3 is not a DLC for MW2. But it definitely feels like it started out that way. Don’t let Activision tell you any different.