I have had the beta since Sunday, I love it! The maps are awesome and there are only a few balance issues, which aren't really a big deal. I love the challenges, and when you complete them they give you a real sense of achievement.

Yeah, i have noticed some questionable things involving explosive, but it is a beta so alot of things will change I am sure. But for a beta is seems to play exceptionally well.

Video looks great... however it's a totally different style than Halo. More simulation probably. Not bad, just different. I'm still jealous you got to play it before me JDizz.

Just got my email with my code! Lookin' forward to playin' this afternoon :D

I would never have expected that from a COD game. I hope it's as good as you say.

The big brown eye(Oculus) is right, H3 and CoD4 are 2 different games. H3 is more open ended multiplayer experience, while thankfully CoD4 decided scale back to CoD2 type multiplayer where it excels(aka not having vehicles and 24 people running around). Those of you who didn't like the aiming reticles in CoD2/3 will not like these either as they seem pretty much the same. The environments are very detailed and calling in a airstrike on a bunch of red bleeps on the radar has never been more fun. This looks to be an awesome and fun multiplayer game that shouldn't dissapoint those who are expecting just that. I hope I didn't set the bar too hight for you guys(I think it is deserving of praise), but there are just certain games you play and you can really see how much potential it has to be something really special.

I like realistic reticles. Nothing is better than locking a pair of opponents into the spawning cycle near the barn on that small German map in COD2.

There will be other ways to get into the beta.

My activation email finally came this morning. But, I didn't register for the beta as the window has closed.

How would you guys rate it compared to the Halo 3 beta?

This game is awesome. It's better than CoD2 by a good margin. I'll write more about it later, but after playing for 30 minutes I know that I'll definitely be buying this game.

I sure would like my token.

Wow, this is a very fun game. The pacing is great; it's fast, but not too fast. It's very satisfying to get a kill, and after playing for a few hours, I don't feel like I've been unjustly killed or didn't get a kill I deserved. Very nice...

It's 6 O'clock in the morning. I'm going to go play CoD4 now.

Does it play like CS? I've never been able to get into CS or any of its clones. I'll probably still pick it up just to see what all the fuss is about.

I think it's more like BF2 than CS although there are similarities between both.

Yesterday, finally, after much lament, I received my Beta token for COD4. I am having a blast. This game feels much closer to the battle sim I've always wanted Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six to be. Here are some bullets on my favorite features.

1. COD2 realistic sight picture. I love it. To be honest, it's still much easier than the real thing because they've made the front sights about twice as skinny as normal. However, it feels incredibly natural compared to a reticle on the screen.

2. That helicopter that has crashed on the map where you play Marine recon is an incredibly realistic model of a CH-46. It's marked as HMM-161, which is a real frog (what we call the CH-46, look at the landing gear) squadron out of Miramar between Camp Pendleton and San Diego. HMM stands for "helicopter, Marine, medium" because the CH-46 is our medium lift assault support helo.

3. Reloading belt fed weapons is incredibly realistic! I pressed X to reload my M249 and my character released the top-cover, allowing it to swing upward and I thought "What the hell? This looks real." Unfortunately, it takes a few seconds, just like real life. Actually, I think I might be able to reload a SAW faster in real life than in COD4, especially if poop was hitting the prop.

4. Always-on voice comms. Gotta love it.

5. The customizable features are endless. I can't wait to get more XP so I can make more and better custom slots.

6. Incapacitating someone with your rifle and thinking you've killed them makes for a WTF moment when they pull out their pistol and begin to pelt you instead of dying.

7. God bless the M203 grenade launcher.

8. This weekend I hope to put some more time in and get a better feel for using UAVs and air strikes. As JDogg said, Halo 3 had better bring it, because I'll happily play COD4 rather than run around with dual SMGs and noob it up.

I like how if you get 3 kills without dying you can call a UAV, 5 kills you call in an airstrike, and 7 kills you call in a helicopter.

I wonder if the final game will have other incentives to play without dying. 12 kills call in nuclear bomb?

The airstrikes are so cool. They look great. I've never seen an airstrike from ground level, but it seems very accurate.

This is a very fun game but Game of the Year is HALO 3's to lose.

Got the beta token last night as well. I played 4 games.

It's good. There's too many shooters that don't just feel right. COD4 feels right. Your right Midnight though. I think it's almost a more natural feeling than Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six. Aiming is easy, nothing took me too long to get used to.

Great graphics, solid aiming, solid controls, good user interface, good feel of the weapons, it sucks to play a game that doesn't feel good to shoot.

I'm trying to think of something I didn't like about the game, and I can't yet. Give me more time and I probably will.

Maybe not a Halo 3 killer, but I will definitely be spending some time playing this game where I would have been playing H3. To be honest, I was kind of bummed that we probably wouldn't be playing Gears after H3 came out because of the huge amount of teamwork and communication required for that game. I think COD4 might replace that void as it seems you'll need to communicate a good bit. Good call on the always on voice comm.

Only detractors for me are that it can be fairly chaotic (hmm, much like real warfare) and you die fairly easily (again, realism). However, you can take much more damage than in Ghost Recon, so I suppose that's picking nits. I think those are two factors that are important to balance in the realism vs fun arena.

I'm a little turned off by how fast I die. IWard added an economy to the game. I'm guessing they'll use that economy to prevent people from running and gunning all the time.

For instance, if I've got 4 kills straight, I'm going to play conservative to stay alive so that I can get the 5th kill for the Airstrike.

I think if people realize how powerful those special attacks are, they will play a little more conservative. Can you imagine a team dropping 10 Airstrikes in a match and having the UAV the whole time?

TIP: Don't use your UAV while it's already scanning the area. Wait for it to use the full 30 seconds of scanning, then call in your UAV. Else, you are wasting the UAV recon.

Hopefully THX will adopt CoD4. GoW is the only 360 title that was widely adopted followed by CoD2.

We've already got a critical mass playing the beta that I anticipate will adopt:
EA
FB
Midnight
Oculus
JDogg

Add to that probables like FB's siblings, Slayer, Mintz, Disavowed (who will have a 360 in November), etc. and this could be a viable solution for frustrated evenings of H3.

I didn't get into the beta (missed the window) but y'all are getting me excited about COD4. I've got the feeling that a bit of hands-on time will make this a must-buy for me. It'll be nice to have something other than Halo to play with people.

But... I do play the beta and will probably adopt...

I'm sorry, I assumed you didn't have it since you decided to play the Skate demo while 5 of your friends were online playing COD4.