2. Focus on Single-Player

So much of the FPS genre has shifted towards a focus on multiplayer. While I like getting online and racking up headshots as much as the next person, I still feel that the single-player experience is central to the FPS genre as a whole. When you are only focused on delivering an experience to one type of gamer, you're likely to turn the rest off. This is where I feel like games from the Call of Duty and Halo franchises are dropping the ball.

Battlefield 3 promises to deliver a comprehensive single-player experience that will finally feel worth your $60. And with its semi-open world gameplay, the possibilities for single-player replay value are quite high. I won't say that multiplayer isn't important to the shooter genre, but I don't think it should ever eclipse the single-player mode.

1. Truly Modern Warfare

One of the biggest selling points that fans of the Call of Duty franchise often tout is the fact that the events in the game feel true to real-world events and could happen in a modern setting. However, this isn't entirely true. In a modern combat situation, soldiers have to think on their feet, strategize when circumstances change, and use the environment to their advantage. There is no hopping from checkpoint to checkpoint, walking endlessly forward, or using the glowing item to win.

Although Battlefield 3 is structured like a traditional game and will have levels with starting and ending points, how you get from one area to the next is completely up to you. Linearity is thrown completely out the window. You can truly play through the game any way you like, changing your tactics on the fly, depending how events in the game play out.

Giving the player freedom of choice and not creating levels around set pieces or triggered cutscenes are things that will give Battlefield 3 an edge not only on a gameplay level, but on a realistic level as well. It will also remove that contrived sense from the game and let players experience truly modern and visceral combat for the first time.

Battlefield 3 looks like it is really going to push the FPS genre forward when it releases this fall. However, that's not the only game we've got our eyes on. Check back next week for another installment of Why You Should!

By Amanda L. Kondolojy
CCC Senior Contributing Writer

*The views expressed within this article are solely the opinion of the author and do not express the views held by Cheat Code Central.*