Has Battlefield Bad Company 2 lost its charm?

By now you have already noticed the significant differences between Battlefield Bad Company 2 and its predecessor. BBC2 has taken a page right out of the Call of Duty handbook and altered its gameplay and look to one that is more realistic. Missions are no longer semi-free roaming as the original and some adjustments have been made to the controls and health system to assimilate with popular FPS games like the ever popular Call of Duty franchise. While some of these changes are welcomed with open arms, I can’t help but feel that its lost some of its charm.

Part of being in Bad Company is playing outside of the rules, which is kind of hard to do when the only way to get to point A to B is a straight line. Of course I can still decide whether to take out enemies by regular gunfire or by chipping away at an infrastructure until it collapses on the whole lot, but it doesn’t feel as free of a choice as in the original.

Everything is a bit of a trade off this time around, DICE trades in cartoonish graphics and characters who were mockeries of themselves for a beautifully detailed world and characters that feel less stereotypical and more real. I don’t think this new direction was necessary for the game to evolve. I would go even further to say that it has ruined the charm of the original and has become just another decent FPS in a sea crowded with titles just like it.

With all that said, I am enjoying the time I’ve spent with the game very much. I just don’t feel the same love for the characters as I did before. Somewhere in the midst of improved textures and tweaked gameplay the characters that made the original so fresh and exciting was lost. Which is really a shame because Battlefield Bad Company was always about the characters first and everything else (destruction, weapons, collectables) came second.

What are your feelings on the new direction Battlefield Bad Company 2 has taken? Were the changes for better or worse?