The loss of sense of scale gaming or the Call of Duty-ing of our gaming subculture CONTINUED

TLDR: Multiplayer gaming started to innovate with BF1942, but began to stagnate with the introduction of Call of Duty to console players.

In fact, Battlefield popularity reached a high-point during the invasion of Iraq. Desert Combat, a modern day total conversion mod for BF1942, churned out map after user-created map days after the real-life battles. Players were able to play the Battle of Basra the day after which it occurred. This garnered the mod visibility on news outlets such as CNN. An impressive feat, considering the only other PC mod to ever gain attention was GTA's Hot Coffee.

The very next year in 2003, the first Call of Duty was released. Running on a heavily modified version of the Quake 3 engine, Call of Duty provided a tightly-scripted experience highlighting a few key single player mission mechanics: the reinforcement countdown timer (where players were tasked with defending an area against overwhelming odds until reinforcements arrived a.k.a. the angels on our wings mission), the unlimited enemy spawn position (where a front line of enemies would continuously spawn until you advanced on the objective), and the use of ironsights as a precision aiming mechanic. Though not the best-looking of games on it's release, it did provide many exciting set-pieces not yet seen in the over-saturated WWII genre.

Stalingrad, the best level in the game.

Stalingrad, an exact copy of the first few minutes of Enemy at the Gates, was a particularly good anti-thesis to Medal of Honor's D-Day landing. If you were unfortunate enough to play the level first on the console-released Finest Hour, you didn't know what you were missing.

Multiplayer, on the other hand, was never Infinity Ward's strong suit. In Call of Duty, it was just another batch of tried and true deathmatch and team deathmatch the only unique aspect being the replay of the player's viewpoint that killed you. Besides being a fairly cool gimmick, this also cut down on any issues of hacking, though some argued it allowed inexperienced players an unfair advantage against an experienced sniper.

Multiplayer was finally improved later, through the Gray Matter-developed expansion pack United Offensive. Vehicles were allowed in multiplayer in the form of tanks and jeeps. Base Assault was a nirvana of team multiplay and is still great today. Teams would defend and attack three hardened control bunkers. These bunkers would require heavy bombardment from tank shells, explosives or artillery strikes to break down concrete outer walls then would require infantry to capture the objective a la Battlefield.

Even More to come...