Spec Ops The Line Multiplayer: Tries too hard

Written by Erik Kubik, kube00 Thursday, 05 July 2012 06:00

It must be tough to be an action game with multiplayer these days and compete with Halo, COD, Uncharted, Gears, etc. The list goes on and on. Spec Ops: The Line has some great ideas but there might not be enough to keep gamers around.

Back in 2007, I loved Condemned 2 and I was pumped it had multi player. I felt the same with Bulletstorm, which had a great single player game and multi player. Unfortunately both these games have something in common their multi player communities didn't last long. Like Spec Ops, they had some good ideas but there wasn't the long term interest from the gaming community.

Spec Ops has a robust class system in its multi player, each class has different bonuses for the player and what they bring to the team. As gamers level much like in COD there are ranks, perks, new weapons, and new armor. The 3rd person run and gun perspective gets some time getting use too. Gamers can vault and slide into cover. This comes in handy during heated firefights.

There are bonuses for being team leader, getting executions, aiming high, headshots, using sand to kill people etc. Speaking of sand, random sandstorms kick up and obscure vision, tear apart the landscape which sends debris flying which can kill players. The sandstorms also knock out the radar. This make is a mad scramble to see and stay alive.

So far Team Deathmatch and Free for all have had a decent amount of players. In the five hours I played so far I destroyed my opposition in multi player. Most of the games were 4 on 4 or 6 player free for all. The good news is even though I consider myself an “average gamer” at best and I was crushing my competition by 10-15 kills every map. There are other game modes that involve destroying a set number of objects but I could never find people to play. 

Its going to take a lot of work to unlock some of the better perks and guns. For now it's easy to find games and people to play with, the big question is will it last and for how long? If the publisher releases some free DLC and co-op play I could see more people playing Spec Ops: The Line for now. Six months from now is anyone’s guess. I'd give the multi player 6.5/10 and consider it a bonus to the single player game. But if you are willing to take a chance it appears the price is already coming down.