Due to a misspent youth and cruelly repressive parents, I was an adult before I got into first-person shooters. And the only shooters I’ve played have been in the Call of Duty series. Soon, however, I will be faced with a choice: Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 will be coming out at around the same time, and I’d prefer to become obsessed with only one of them instead of both. I don’t really care about the backdrop: it doesn’t matter whether it’s modern military or old west or space marines. I just want the one with better gameplay.
But in trying to decide, I realized that I know very little about the other franchises beyond CoD. I know that CoD is distinct for having very low player health, and I believe its “perk” system is somewhat unique. But beyond that, I’m not sure. Do most other FPS’es let you customize classes? Are killstreak rewards standard? Do they all have pretty much the same game modes? What about ranking up? Is the player base similar in each? What else is special and what distinguishes each franchise?
I play only on PS3, but feel free to include PC- and 360-only titles as well. Which means we can cover CoD, Halo, Team Fortress, Medal of Honor, Counter-Strike, and Battlefield (not sure if all of these are in contention for serious consideration, or if I missed any major ones). No particular need to say which one is subjectively “better.” I’m really just looking for the objective differences and distinctions.
Okay, obviously that was too broad. Nobody likes a question that would require a novel as an answer. So let’s say this. If you’ve played the multiplayer of any two of the following games, can you explain the similarities and/or differences?
[ul]
[li]Call of Duty[]Halo[]Battlefield[/li][li]Metal of Honor[/li][li]Team Fortress[/li][li]Killzone[/li][li]Unreal Tournament[/li][li]Counterstrike[/li][li]Doom[/li][/ul]
Also, this list is supposed to represent all multiplayer FPS franchises that are currently relevant, so let me know if any shouldn’t be on here, or if I’m missing any.
While I was a big COD4 fan, I’m now solidly in the Battlefield camp. The reasons are purely personal preference, as both series are generally great games.
For me (and I’ll use Battlefield:Bad Company 2 vs Call of Duty:Black Ops as specific examples), the attraction of BF:BC2 over COD:BO is that BC2 seems to reward team play to a greater extent than COD. I can land in the top-half of the leaderboard without killing a single person, by virtue of well-playing my role as a medic. Other roles, such as assault and engineer, can also earn significant points by regularly exercising their team-helping powers.
Secondly, BO seems much more of a “twitch” game: tight maps, close-quarters, very quick gameplay. Whether most BC2 maps are bigger or not, they feel bigger, and fit my playstyle better, allowing me to actually think about what tactics I want to use, letting me use at least a bit of the tactics I’ve learned IRL.
Finally, I don’t care for the killstreak system of COD, and I generally find the perks of Battlefield much more realistic than those of COD.
Again, all of the above is why one fits MY playstyle. Reasonable people can prefer the COD franchise.
I play on the 360 for FPS exclusively, and I tend to play a little more competitively than most. Halo is the gold standard for a multiplayer experience. The lobby system they have is, by far, the best in all of consoles. All your game stats are on Bungie.net, so you can see how you did and get a feel for how each particular match was played. The gameplay is nice and tight, and the quality of the connections is very good. Also, it ranks you up against people that are similarly skilled. I’ve not played Halo: Reach for a while because of burnout, and also because of one small potion of the game. After they release a title update and the re-released maps from Halo: Combat Evolved, there will be a playlist that gets rid of the DMR bloom and the armor abilities, so I’ll go back to that.
I also play Call Of Duty. Modern Warfare 2 was horribly balanced, and, when it first came out, had glitches and problems. Those are smoothed out, but the horrible balance is there. The connections are good, though. In Black Ops, you have a much better game. It’s more balanced, killstreaks don’t stack (in Modern Warfare 2, the joke was that you only needed to earn 5 kills to get the Predator missile. Then you could kill two with the missile strike, get your Harrier jet, and ride that to 9 o 11 or 25 to get your Pavelow, AC-130, or your tactical nuke, and end the game with a win with the nuke.) The connections for Black Ops are not as good as the other two games. If you don’t have host, you’ll see weirdness and shenanigans all game long. Also, the Call Of Duty games do not take skill into account when matching you up with opponents. I also strongly dislike the leveling system of Call Of Duty games (up to this point, at least). In Call Of Duty, if you play enough, no matter how good or bad you are, you are able to unlock everything and get to 15th level prestige (Prestige is when you stat your leveling over again. In Black Ops, there are 50 levels. When you prestige, you start over at level 1, with nothing unlocked, but you get an extra custom class slot and also an emblem next to your name. You can do this up to 15 times.) Consequently, if you go in with a full party of 6 people that all have a plan and all play with each other pretty regularly, you’ll get matched up with people of any skill level and people playing by themselves. The result of that is you can end up with weeks where you don’t drop a game because you outclass your opponents so greatly because it doesn’t match players up based on skill at all. After a while, that gets boring, which is where I am with the game. The lobby system in Modern Warfare 2 is horrible, and it’s a lot better for Black Ops, but it’s still horrible.
I’m contemplating Battlefield 3, but their lobby system is even shittier and, unless you start up a party, you’re limited to only talking to a portion of your team. Also, I’m diametrically opposed to vehicles in FPS. If I die, I want it to be because someone outplayed me, not because they were in a tank and I wasn’t. I hear there will be a no-vehicle playlist, and I know a bunch of people that love them some battlefield. I don’t know if they match people up by skill in Battlefield, although I assume they do.
Contrary to what some folks may say, and not just the poster above me, all FPS, when you play it online, takes skill and teamwork. If you try to lone wolf it, you’ll get slaughtered, especially when you get matched up with people that are similarly skilled.
You really only need to concern yourself with the call of duties, the halos, the counterstrikes, Teamfrotresses, and the battlefield’s of the world.
We’re still waiting for a new doom, and I don’t think the multi-player there was the main draw. The last Unreal tournament tanked. Maybe if they focus on PC and port to consoles with their next version it’ll come back… we’ll see. And Medal of Honor is a poor CoD clone.
Teamfortress and Battlefield are team based FPS games. While there are certainly maps and game modes that are closer to what you’d find in a CoD, the backbone of the game, and most of the rewards are geared toward playing as a cohesive team. So those two franchises will certainly offer you a different experience. Both are very popular, though team based FPS games are more popular over on the PC side of things. Also Team fortress is free, so nothing is stopping you from taking a gander.
The SDMB Steam group has pretty much daily Team Fortress 2games going on.
Another group of shooters you might want to look into are the military sims. Stuff like ARMA 2 (3 is coming out soon), Operation: Flashpoint, and a few others. These are definitely a different affair, and you should probably give them a try. ARMA 2 has a “free” edition you can try minus some features.
Thanks for the responses, guys. Like I said in the OP, I’m really more interested in the differences in game mechanics. I’ve tried googling this stuff but it’s incredibly frustrating because everyone assumes a baseline level of knowledge about all FPS franchises, which I do not have.
Can you explain this gameplay mechanic and how it’s different from other games?
Can you explain what gameplay mechanic makes this different from other games?
So you’re saying other games don’t have killstreak systems? How do the perks of Battlefield work?
I’m mostly interested in the differences in gameplay mechanics. What is “DMR bloom” and “armor abilities” and how is it different from other FPS franchises?
How do killstreaks work in other FPS franchises? Or do other franchises, as Raza implies, do away with them entirely?
How do leveling systems work in other FPS franchises?
Can you explain this gameplay mechanic, and how it’s different from other FPS franchises?
How does the vehicle gameplay work in this game, and how is it different from other FPS franchises? Do you earn them through killstreaks? Are they just strewn around the map and the first person to get in it gets to control it? How do other franchises you’ve played handle this?
I don’t want to intimidate anyone with the magnitude of this question, so feel free to answer as much or as little as you want. But here’s the set of central questions again from the OP:
Download Steam and install Team Fortress 2 for free. It is one of the best online first person shooter experiences ever made. The community is still strong, and the learning curve isn’t as steep as many other online FPS games.
I know this game isn’t on your list, but it may help illuminate some of your questions. I play some older FPS multiplayer games, Quake 3 and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. The difference between them is night and day
Quake is a more run-and-gun deathmatch type multiplayer. Most goals can be accomplished by killing tons of people, or sitting in a specific area killing tons of people. Weapons and items are quick, menus are sparse, and power-ups give you crazy boosts like invincibility or Quad damage for a short period of time. You can do well just running in circles getting guns and blowing anything that moves
Wolfenstein is a WW2 based shooter, and the multiplayer is based on an Axis vs. Allied objectives. On any map, one side defends, the other side attacks. There are classes and weapon restrictions. Games are not as fast as Quake. You don’t really get much advantage if you just run in, pick up a gun, and start shooting until you or the other person is dead. You get more rewards by playing it slow, accomplishing smaller tasks to gain experience and level up, and hoarding armor, health, and weapons to take out people from far away.
If you want, I can go into a lot more detail, but since you didn’t ask about Quake and Wolfenstein I’ll assume you’d rather have info on the other games you listed
Geez. You really are starting from the bottom. Of course, the best way to get through this would be to try them yourself and tinker, and see what you like most, but I’ll answer the questions anyways.
DMR = Designated Marksman Rifle. It’s one of the weapons in the game and a staple of gameplay for competitive folk. Since you want background, here it is. Halo 1 was before Xbox Live started. It’s the genesis of the console FPS, really. It had matchmaking that you played over LAN and not over Live. The main weapon was the pistol, which was a three-shot kill if you were accurate with it. Halo 2 got rid of the pistol in favor of the battle rifle. It fired a three-shot burst and required 4 shots, minimum, to kill. In matchmaking, it was a hitscan weapon, which meant that if one bullet from the spread counted, it all counted. Halo 3 comes out, the battle rifle stays, but this time, it’s not a hitscan weapon. Every bullet that comes out has its own ballistic properties and can or cannot hit. It still takes 4 trigger pulls/12 bullets to get a point, though. Rast forward to Halo: Reach. The battle rifle is out in favor of the DMR. It’s a hitscan weapon again, but it only fires one bullet per trigger pull. Now it takes 5 shots to take someone down. Each time you pull the trigger with the DMR, the reticle expands. In order to be more accurate, you have to have a certain cadence to your shots.
Armor abilities are the abilities you have in the game. It might be a jetpack, the ability to sprint over a small distance, cloaking, and a few other things. This is new to the Halo universe, and, I assume, in response to perks from Call Of Duty.
Most FPS franchises didn’t have killstreaks, but it seems to be pretty standard now. Halo does not have them. Call Of Duty 3 had a special perk that would have a certain cooldown. Snipers could call artillery strikes, medics threw out medkits, and some others threw out ammo. In Call Of Duty 4, that changes. Then you have an attack helicopter that shoots folks, a UAV, and an airstrike (I believe). In World At War, that changed to some more time-specific things (this game was set in World War 2 again). Call Of Duty 5, you could pick killstreaks and set them at certain thresholds. In Black Ops, you could do the same thing, but with some different, and, again, more time-specific killstreaks.
So far as leveling goes, in Halo 2 and 3, there are 50 levels. You get matched 5 or 10 above or below your rank (at lower levels, it’s 5, at higher levels, it’s 10, i believe). In Call Of Duty, there is no sorting out by skill. Call Of Duty doesn’t measure it. So, for example, the first day I played Black Ops, about a week after release, I played against someone that was already on their second prestige. I had zero map knowledge, and this person had already leveled through everything once. In Halo: Reach, they use Trueskillto sort out the levels and how you’d get paired up. This makes manipulating the algorithm harder and gives less impetus to cheat, because there’s no visible rank displayed as it was in Halo 2 and Halo 3).
So far as voice chat goes, in Battlefield, it limits you to your squad. Battlefield has more people per team than Halo (4 people in standard playlists ) or Call Of Duty (6 people in standard playlists). Instead of being able to talk to everyone (16 people, I believe?), it limits you to a portion of your squad to talk to.
Vehicles, in Halo, are balanced a bit in most maps. You’re not going to see the equivalent of a tank in a small map, for example. In playlists I go in, I see zero vehicles. Call Of Duty has no multiplayer vehicles now (they did in World At War, most recently). In Battlefield, they seem to be an integral part of the experience.
With class customization, there’s really no such thing in Halo. Weapons are standardized and respawn in specific places on the maps, so it ends up being a game of controlling those spawns in addition to defeating the other team. There are cosmetic unlocks, though. Call Of Duty has perks that you can pick from to highlight how you play. Same goes for attachments to weapons and what not. Battlefield has something similar.
Call Of Duty and Battlefield have low health for your characters. A few bullets do them in. In Halo, accuracy matters more, and you can take more damage before you need to get away and have your shields recharge, however there are power weapons to get through that, like rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and grenades.
There are pretty similar gametypes in each franchise, but some wouldn’t hold up in others.
You’ve got a shitload of questions. At this point, you’re going to want to rent them or get them from someone to try out to see what you prefer.
Indeed. And thanks for your extensive response. There’s a lot of good information in there.
When I google anything like “comparison of FPS games” I get tons of noise. Lots of pages saying “omg, MW2 is the suxxors and halo rox because of all the noobs.” No actual information. What I wish I could find is a list that just lays out all the differences. Here, I’ll try to compile one myself based on what I’ve gleaned from this thread and other research.
[ul]
[li]Classes/loadouts[/li][list][li]Call of Duty - highly customizable. Can choose particular weapons, and weapons customizations. And can choose three from a list of “perks” that augment your abilities. [/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - twelve pre-determined classes, each with its own unique abilities. No customization. [/li][li]Halo - identical loadouts, but power-ups are scattered around the map Mario-style. These can be weapons or COD-type “perks.” [/li][li]Counterstrike - Always identical loadouts? [/li][li]Battlefield - Several (three?) predetermined loadouts. No customization. [/li][/ul]
[li]Levels[/li][ul]
[li]Call of Duty - gaining levels unlocks weapons, killstreaks, perks, etc. but has no effect on matchmaking. There’s a prestige system that resets levels if desired.[/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - No leveling system (?)[/li][li]Halo - Leveling system does not unlock anything, but determines matchmaking (?) The leveling system is not linear, so you don’t automatically gain levels just by playing a lot.[/li][li]Counterstrike - (?)[/li][li]Battlefield - (?)[/li][/ul]
[li]Vehicles[/li][ul]
[li]Call of Duty - No vehicles, except as killstreak rewards[/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - No vehicles[/li][li]Halo - Vehicles can be found scattered around the maps, and the first person to reach one of them gets it.[/li][li]Counterstrike - No vehicles (?)[/li][li]Battlefield - Vehicles can be found scattered around the maps, and the first person to reach one of them gets it (?)[/li][/ul]
[li]Killstreaks[/li][ul]
[li]Call of Duty (current gen) - Before a match, you pick three killstreak rewards. Getting consecutive kills without dying will earn them. Better ones require longer streaks.[/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - No killstreak system.[/li][li]Halo - No killstreak system.[/li][li]Counterstrike - No killstreak system.[/li][li]Battlefield - Does have a killstreak system (?) but it’s called “perks” (?)[/li][/ul]
[li]Maps[/li][ul]
[li]Call of duty - Variety of maps, large and small (though some have complained too many are small). Also, they have absolutely criminal business practices about releasing new map “packs”[/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - Very few maps. Like three of them.[/li][li]Halo - Huge maps so that vehicles have room to fly around. [/li][li]Counterstrike - (?)[/li][li]Battlefield - Maps have to be big because there are a zillion players on each one.[/li][/ul]
[li]Damage system[/li][ul]
[li]Call of Duty - Players have notoriously low HP. However if you survive a firefight, your HP resets after about 5 seconds.[/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - (?)[/li][li]Halo - Players have high HP and take a lot of hits to kill. HP does not “grow back” à la COD (?) but there are health power-ups like a Mario game (?)[/li][li]Counterstrike - (?)[/li][li]Battlefield - Low health, similar to COD. HP also resets after surviving firefights (?)[/li][/ul]
[li]Matchmaking[/li][ul]
[li]Call of Duty - Awful[/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - Awful[/li][li]Halo - The best ever in the whole wide world[/li][li]Counterstrike - Awful[/li][li]Battlefield - Awful[/li][/ul]
[li]Game modes[/li][ul]
[li]Call of Duty - Dozens of game modes, including several kill-based (TDM, FFA) and objective-based.[/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - Has one TDM mode and three objective-based modes[/li][li]Halo - Has a TDM-like mode and a few objective modes (?)[/li][li]Counterstrike - Only TDM and capture-the-flag (?)[/li][li]Battlefield - (?)[/li][/ul]
[li]Player base[/li][ul]
[li]Call of Duty - Everybody. [/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - People who have faster computers than I do, and a very few console gamers. [/li][li]Halo - Everybody who owns a 360. Also jackasses.[/li][li]Counterstrike - Nobody, since this came out in 1999, and is incredibly dated now.[/li][li]Battlefield - (?)[/li][/ul][/list]
General question to everybody - Did I miss anything? Any other categories that should be on there? Any other games that should be on there? Anybody care to fill in question marks?
Capture The Flag: Call Of Duty and Halo
Deathmatch: Call Of Duty and Halo
Oddball (team that holds the objective for a longer time wins): Halo
Domination/Territories (three places on the map, capture and hold them for points) Both
Search and Destroy/One Bomb (one explosive to a certain point, arm the bomb and win the round) Both
SWAT/Hardcore (limited health): Both
Also worth noting, friendly fire is always on in Halo. In Call Of Duty, it’s on in hardcore variants.
That’s a pretty non-standard usage of the term “hitscan,” which normally just means that real ballistics don’t apply and the bullets are basically instant-hit laser beams.
[li]Classes/loadouts[/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - twelve pre-determined classes, each with its own unique abilities. No customization. [/li][li]Team Fortress 2 - No leveling system (?)[/li][/QUOTE]
Not quite true in either case. You start with no customization in TF2, but every so often you randomly acquire additional items for various different classes’ loadsets - most of them make only a slight difference, but some completely change how the class is played. This is not a true levelling reward, because it doesn’t reward good play or kills or anything, but just time played. But it does increase your flexibility over time.
In addition, you can (1) craft items once you’ve picked up enough random drops by breaking down the items you don’t want to use and (2) buy stuff for real money. Also, I think your random drop rate increases significantly once you’ve bought anything at all for real money.
I believe that only applies for those who downloaded the game for free. For those who bought a copy, the random drop rate starts out at that higher level. So buying something from the store doesn’t have any added benefit for them.
I’ll just drop the names of ARMA II and Red Orchestra (the latter has a new offering-Stalingrad-coming out in the next couple of weeks), since they typically have big maps, plenty of vehicles and aircraft, and thus room for manuever and planning.
Some corrections: Counterstrike has an unbelievably large player base. Retardedly large, consider that it is such an old game. And it’s got a huge, competitive following as well.
Team fortress 2, ever since it went free to play, now fields an even larger player base than that. It’s also super light on PC requirements, are you sure you can’t run it?
Battlefield is going to be huge. Maybe not as big as MW3, but still huge.
Was just googling around for thoughts on MW3 and found this thread. Figured I’d chime in as a grizzled FPS veteran (started with Quake II circa 1997). I have only played FPSes on PCs, never consoles.
Randy, the chart you posted is a good place to start. There are some inaccuracies, but if you like, I can write out a more extensive one.
With respect to your original question, both MW3 and BF3 are solid choices for your PS3. If you like shooters, I’d recommend going to PC games.
Now the rundown of games (I’ve played them all):
Counter-strike (pure competition): Most competitive combat, as reflected in the large number of leagues and pro competitions. Objective oriented, guns only. Difficult to pick up, but very rewarding.
Modern Warfare 3 (leveling and deathmatch): Known for leveling system, perks, killstreaks. Emphasis is on unlocking new items that create different styles of game play. Probably best deathmatch mode out of recently released games. Huge favorite because it feels like an action movie a-la Michael Bay.
Battlefield 3 (vehicles and large scale): Largest scale combat for a modern shooter. Huge emphasis on vehicles and oversized battles. Also action movie like, but more “realistic”.
Team Fortress 2 (strategy and teamwork): Easiest shooter for casual players to pick up. Classes are genuinely varied, leading to always-interesting gameplay. Requires the most teamwork and strategy.
Left for Dead 2 (cooperative gameplay): Lots of strategy and teamwork involved.
Older games Unreal and Quake series (deathmatch, high speed): High twitch, high speed mayhem. Deathmatch, with CTF a close second.
Halo: Balanced, simple gameplay, yet still managed to incorporate vehicles. Extra popular because you could play it in person with friends.
Goldeneye: Not classic online multiplayer, but wonderful for living room battles.
Tribes 2: Vehicle based large scale combat. Ultimate 3 dimensional gameplay. Impossibly hard to play.
There’s a ton more that I haven’t said here, and details that I’m probably glossing over. At a macro level, early FPSes focused on reflex shooting on a PC. Console games have deemphasized reflexes in favor of levelling systems and vehicles/killstreaks. That’s the current trend at least.
OP, let me know if there’s more you want to know. I’ve just barely started.
That’s not what hitscan means. Hitscan simply means that the bullet travels instantaneously - if your aim point is over the target when you pull the trigger, the target will be hit, regardless of distance, motion of the target, etc. Like you’re shooting a laser gun.
The opposite of this is to have bullets modelled as projectiles - they occupy a real point in time and space, so if your target is moving you need to put your bullet on a path that will intercept the target’s path (leading), often games will have a full ballistics model with bullet drop due to gravity, etc.
Simpler, more arcadey games tend to have hitscan. Stuff that wants to skew more realistic typically has a full ballistic models. Some games integrate both types as part of the weapon balance (Q3 has the machine gun and railgun that are hitscan, rocket launcher and plasma gun are projectile, etc.)
COD and BF are similar in that you can attach various stuff to your guns after unlocking them through gameplay.
TF2 has 9 classes and lots of weapons - the weapon design in TF2 is designed to be different but equal - weapons will have a different playstyle, with positives and negatives compared to the other weapons. COD/BF style games are all basic variations on a theme - all of the assault rifles and light machine guns and sniper rifles are all basically the same and only have slight differences between them, whereas the TF2 alternate weapons can totally change a class playstyle. TF2 also has lots of cosmetic customization.
Counterstrike features buying your own kit - weapons, armor, grenades, gadgets - every round from a pool of money you get from completing various individual and team objectives.
BF3 has 4 basic classes but dozens of weapons and weapon customizations between them.
CoD and BF have a similar levelling system attached to unlocking stuff. Counterstrike has no levelling system - everyone is on equal footing at all times. TF2 has no levelling sytem but you’ll collect more items (both random drops and achievements) with more time played.
Battlefield perks are modifiers to your character like the COD perks are, they aren’t based off getting kills, but you select them when you change your loadout. They’re stuff like being able to carry extra ammo, inflicting more suppression with your gunfire, etc. Otherwise correct.
TF2 has [Damage system"]dozens]([*) of stock maps, and hundreds of community made maps.
COD does have an extremely lame 5 maps for $15 DLC policy, and 2 of those maps are just recycled from previous COD games, so you get 3 new maps for $15.
Counterstrike is like TF2 - fewer stock maps perhaps but there are a gazillion community made ones, and lots of good ones.
BF3 maps are pretty huge and varied. There are different game modes which can use the same geographic area but have the game play out totally differently based on where the important stuff is located and the size of the playable area for that mode/size.
COD has “hardcore” and normal modes. In hardcore you die very quickly, in normal mode you die… pretty quickly. It’s designed to be a fast paced twitch shooter game yes.
BF3 has about as much health as normal COD, maybe a touch more, and it also typically features fights at longer ranges with more cover so firefights can last longer. Not that all fights occur at long range, but there are way more than COD, where most fights tend to occur within about 30 feet.
TF2 features more health than any of the other games in terms of average firepower inflicted on the enemy before they die.
Counterstrike is a very heavily twitch skill based game and emphasizes headshots extensively, but there’s also a wide range of damage amongst the weapon types.
This list doesn’t make much sense to me but it may have more meaning on consoles. PCs generally don’t have “matchmaking” as such - you pull out the server browser and figure out what sort of game you want to play and join. Sometimes shitty developers attempt to force a matchmaking system on PC players and it is an abomination before all that is good. MW2 is the prime example and it’s a worthless game because of it.
So COD MW2/3 are awful, yes, blops was alright, and TF2, Counterstrike, and Battlefield all use the same non-matchmaking that make them superior to any matchmaking game.
BF3 has two major modes - conquest, involving controlling areas on the map to deplete an enemy’s tickets until you win, and rush, where an attacking side has to keep blowing up successive objectives against a defending side. There are smaller scale versions of those battles too, along with deathmatch type stuff. COD doesn’t have “dozens” of modes - maybe 8 or 9 - but it does cover a decent variety.
Counterstrike has bomb planting and hostage rescue.
Counterstrike is wildly popular still, there are usually 120k people playing it a day at the peak time, and several hundred thousand throughout the day. It probably has the most total player-hours out of any of these games by a large margin over its history.
TF2 isn’t very popular on console as far as I know - it’s solidly popular on PC.
BF3 is very popular - no idea on the actual numbers but a very large player base.
Are you decidedly console-focused? If you were considering the PC versions, I’d say that the moddability of games and community support are big factors, but they’re nonexistant on consoles so no one has an edge.
Mods can be absolutely huge - from tweaking and perfecting existing gameplay to inventing entirely new, free games out of old ones. Counterstrike itself is a half-life mod - it was an entirely free game created by the community available to anyone who owns half-life. Most of the best multiplayer games of all time are actually total converison mods - games that wouldn’t even exist if the community were unable to tinker. An active community also tends to make a ton of high quality custom maps.
