I have only played CoD 2 but I can say this: street fight. With some exceptions (tank british mision) you are engaged in street combats, trying to survive among the ruins, shoot first each door, grenade-ing each room or corner where an enemy might wait for you. This leads to very intensive actions.

I don't know what people do you know but I don't like to fight against Germans. They are in game because the most known leader of WW2 was german :). Remeber that there were two fronts: one in Europe and one in Pacific (US vs Japanese forces). Europe has more many ground fights so it is a better background for a game.

Games want to live the "moments", to feel what if I was there. Anyway, don't make it too hollywood styled, have a happy end but let people die around the player, have feelings. War is about blood and death. Remember some scripted events from CoD 2 when they die in front of you and you think "one second more and I would have been dead".

There's probably next to none of us who have actually taken part of ground combat anything like COD2. Modern combat is completely different these days than it was in WW2. Anyone telling you similarities between COD2 and 'real life warfare' is pulling it out of their ass as a wild guess. There could never be another modern day Beach invasion. These days the entire beach could be turned to glass with cruise missles before the soldiers even set foot on it.

Germans make no better enemies than anyone else. They just happen to be major contributors in the particular wars. Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault was versus Japan, as Vietcong was against the VC. The setting of the gameplay is what is going to determine who is being fought. The ground combat of Germany happens to be what is used most. No particular reason other than it probably being one of the biggest ground combat campaigns ever, so there is alot of material to pull from.

A good shooter appeals to me. The characters are fictional, most of the missions are fictional, even if they are based off of real events in the war. There is alot of creative license taken in wargames. I don't personally consider it reliving historical events.

IMO COD2 was a mediocre shooter. I've had more fun with the atmosphere of the first Vietcong game. When I played the first medal of honor game where you storm the beach, it seemed clear they tried to emulate the Saving Private Ryan beach raid. They did a pretty good job it seemed, and it was very intense and nerve racking. IMO trying to look at games as historically accurate events is not a good idea.

Agreed with the previous poster. If you can let the character get attached to an NPC emotionally, and that player happens to die, that's going to give an emotional response. Preferably if the character were to die doing something heroic, not due to stupid AI where he doesn't get fully behind cover and catches one to the back of the head(COD) over a low wall.

Other than possible accurate modelling of the weapons in these games, there isn't really much else that is historically that accurate. The settings of the missions are butchered into a linear gameplay experience, for good reason. It is a game after all. IMO what the COD and MOH games did to make it more than a basic shooter was give you persistant NPCs that you fought with, giving the distinct feeling that you were a participant in the war, not the lone gunman that won it for the team.(even though you kinda were).