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Call of duty black ops:
Stating the obvious, there should be a COD game on this list. Lets face the facts, while this game is both loved and hated there is a good reason it's became popular. The game is open to everyone with its cheap thrills, but content packed gameplay, it has plenty of modes, and supports everything from Co-op to 3D. Sure its not the best game for hardcore gamers to stick with, and it could use better progress and more breathing space due to activision making it their cash cow, however the series is overall a solid FPS open to the masses. Even if you decide to hate on it, you still have to admit that its better than 80% of the other FPS games which are just trying to copy and paste the same gameplay and formula without the many user friendly features and rewards that COD is packed with. Now, which is the best COD? Simple, black ops. Black ops gave the series its greatest attempt at innovating multiplayer, and had some hardcore adjustments in mind to prevent the series from going purely casual. Truely noticeable gun recoil, and diving were introduced to improve on what used to be reflex based battles, A gamble mode was fun and had fun ideas that seemed to date back to counter-strike and old school shooters, and there were just small fun tweaks thrown in like 1st tier perks changing the character models, contracts for XP, bot mode with seperate ranking, and a seriously deep emblem maker. Also the leveling was put at 50, and while they claimed it was just like MW2's 70, it thankfully wasn't that bad of a pointless grind yet more prestiges were around if you liked that sort of thing. All of this was sadly thrown out the window in MW3, but lets hope black ops 2 stays true to black ops 1 and delivers another surprise. Oh, also I guess I better mention something about zombies since the internet is in love with that mode. I don't get it, but oh well it's a nice bonus.
Battlefield 3 and bad company 2:
I've got to admit, I'm disappointed with BF3. So I'll include them both since BF3 did some cool things, but I can't put it over BC2. Remember that 80% number of games that I mentioned earlier, that just steal COD's formula and water it down and reskin it? Well this is one of the few that stole it and actually succeeded in being awesome. Its success is thanks to its tactical gameplay, strategy, and the fact that it wants to be more open than most of its competitors. Plus it has terrain damage and large scale war, that's just awesome on its own. I really don't think much more needs to be said, it's one of the best ways to experience and online FPS war game.
Team fortress 2:
This one seriously deserves a lot of credit. It's pretty ancient, and came out borderlining the end of the PS2 generation, yet it still has strong fans, parodies, influence, and it never gets old. It does this without stealing, without following traditions, and without fitting into any category of gamer. Even after it went F2P, and after constant game changing updates, it's been a blast to just log on and blast people. It is now complete with bots, a variety of modes, huge fanbase full of custom maps and servers, and an endless supply of fun and laughter for nearly every type of gamer. This is truly one of the best class based games ever, no questions about it. It's free, and considering it runs on a ton of PCs there really isn't an excuse to not play it.
Killzone 2:
One of my personal favorites. It seems to be the popular pick among a cult of hardcore FPS gamers, or what's left of us after everyone else decided to be a "me too" product for the masses. With an amazing engine, fun and very deep gameplay, server lists, and plenty of options and other small details, this is just an awesome and unique game built from the ground up for the FPS enthusiast and hardcore gamer. The servers are extremely customizable, clans and unique squad system run well, the gunplay has a great learning curve with great recoil and weight feel, and then there are plenty of small details to appreciate like the physics, dark atmosphere, giant stat tracking list, custom music player, etc. This is a must have for the hardcore FPS fanbase that is dreaming for a return to the better days of shooters.
StarHawk:
Another one that feels more like a personal choice, however I will give you some facts. It will have free map DLC for its life cycle. It supports big battles made up of organized chaos. It has deep clan systems. It is very well balanced. Okay, enough fact talking, now its time for me to come right out and tell you how amazing it is! While this list is in no specific order, if it was this would be on #1. Most of this game can be summed up in fun based on how it doesn't follow hardly any traditions. It has a weapon for each weapon type, its ranking is useless because it only gives you skins and paint, the health is big, it combines RTS gameplay with shooting, and once a battle has unfolded it is a mess but a really fun one. In other words everything about this game relies on its fun gameplay, and nothing that distracts from it. You have one weapon for every weapon type, meaning you shouldn't be whining over how one rifle is more overpowered than the other and whatnot. You instead pick the type of gun you want, use it, and you either kill or get killed based on your made preference. No gripes about recoil, whether or not you snipe with bolt action, or if your rocket was a fair shot. Everybody has the same chance, yet thanks to the big health it takes skill and endurance to bring down people. Meanwhile you can also build and strategize with the innovative use of having a building system introduced into a shooter. There is also a unique sense of balancing, and anybody can kill a tank or hawk yet the hawk and tank still have amazing advantages. You get the point, this game isn't about gimmicks it's about a fantastic multiplayer. It's fun, exciting, and never dull. Oh, yeah and did I mention that the map packs will be free and that this is one of the best games to play a CTF match?
Honorable mentions:
-Uncharted 3 for being generally fun and having strong developer support.
-Resistance 3 for its combination of COD and arena style multiplayer.
-Far cry 2 for just being a LOT of fun the few times I could get into a match
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Could have done better (for those that disappointed the most)
Warhammer 40'000 space marines:
Now I love this game, and the warhammer 40k universe. However this just makes it kind of more disappointing. It steals the common and overdone COD formula, includes the crappy P2P matchmaking, lags constantly, leaves the combat kind of dry, and to finish it off... they impress us with an amazing amount of customization. It just makes you wish the gameplay was better so that you could have fun showing off your custom space marine gear and colors. It's like telling me you made me an amazing cake, drop it and ruin it, and then pick it back up and offer it to me despite the mud, grass, bugs, and mess that covers it. Overall warhammer deserves better. We should get that amazing customization, and some fantastic gameplay that is unique yet true to warhammer. It's a fun game overall, I'm not going to say its a complete loss, but the frustrating matchmaking and mediocre gameplay is just not the online I would expect if I were to buy an action packed warhammer game.
Brink:
Brink... what a sad fate. Hyped, loved, and released with amazing gameplay and effort. Oh, but that effort wasn't for the maps and replayabiltity. And they did accomplish the goal to blur single player with multiplayer, because singleplayer didn't exist. The entire game was a masterpiece without the proper levels and freedom to completely enjoy it. To top it off, the multiplayer was amazingly bad in netcoding. Overall that's all that needs to be said. If the sequel releases with a team deathmatch, more than 8 levels total, and allows you to actually play the game without running into a chain of lag freezes, then maybe you will find it on the opposite side of this list.
Modern warfare 3:
Again, this is about disappointment not just poor gameplay. Rest assured Modern warfare 3 can keep its 9/10 that I think I gave its multiplayer segment. However all of that praise that you can see above for black ops is pretty much scrapped without reason in this successor. Recoil is almost absent, no diving, theater was broken to a frustrating point the last time I used it, it took forever before the gamble modes were reintroduced, and a bunch of the smaller fun things that were in black ops were just tossed out. Not only that, but about everything was replaced with MW2 mechanics. With two companies working on it instead of one, you'd expect more new things than a bunch of gun rank and kill streak tweaks to play with while in the lobby. While I love the updated support this game is getting, the new modes are fantastic, and the game is overall worth getting and playing, it is just not as great as you'd expect it to be after black ops. Black ops raised the bar, and Modern warfare 3 came up too short to reach it. However I will say that I LOVED the survival mode a lot more than I thought I would, and while the maps are boxed in they by far beat the "meh" ones in black ops.
Honorable mentions:
-Crysis 2 for being a complete COD clone without much effort put into beyond throwing a suit into the gameplay. Hard to believe this was made by the timesplitter developers.
-Killzone 3 because the difference in server management really did kill the game for many.
-Resistance 2 for just being an extremely messy multiplayer without any point or fun to it.
