New information: # Customizable Kill Streaks.
You now unlock kill streaks as you rank up, and though you can still only take three into a match with you at one time, you can at least have some control over how many kills you need to rack up to use them. Some of the kill streak rewards require three, four, five, six, seven, nine kills… In addition to old favorites like the UAV, there are things like a care package that's parachuted in and grants you a random upgrade; stationary sentry guns you can put down to beef up defenses, especially in objective-based games; and of course the AC130 gunship, which requires 11 kills to use.
# Death Streaks.
Death streaks? Yes, you will now be rewarded for dying too many times in a row, in an effort to prevent frustration for those just getting into Modern Warfare 2. Painkiller, which starts you with a triple health boost after you're killed three times without making any kills of your own, and Copycat, which lets you use the loadout and perks of the last guy who killed you for one life.
# Secondary Weapons Replace Pistols.
Pistols are still in there if you want them, but you can pass up the lo' Desert Eagle in favor of tactical shotguns, automatic machine pistols, and other nice gear to augment your primary rifle. All these secondary weapons can take attachments just like the primaries can, so if you want to throw a suppressor or digital camo on your shotgun, more power to ya.
# Fancy New Equipment Instead of Grenades.
Toss out your frag grenades, if you want, and replace them with some nifty gear that serves a variety of other purposes. Perhaps you would prefer Semtex timed sticky explosives? How about some throwing knives? Or how bout a flare that you can throw down and use as a respawn? Neat.
Experience Boosts Galore.
It seems like you get experience point bonuses for doing damn near anything in the new game. I'm not just talking headshots; any stylish or meaningful kill is going to give you some kind of experience boost. Kill a guy just before he's about to get a kill streak? Bonus. Take out the guy who just killed you? Bonus. Get the last kill in a match? Bonus. IW says the leveling (which now caps at level 70) has been tweaked to take the faster accumulation of points into account, and you'll get something gameplay-related for prestiging this time around. They aren't saying what, though.
# Callsigns.
The game now has a title and emblem system (similar to Street Fighter 4) with dozens upon dozens of descriptive phrases you can unlock and slap on your profile to give other players a sense of exactly how you've been putting it down online. The titles and emblems you can get will correspond to your behaviors, so if you spend a lot of time camping or you rack up a ton of melee kills, everyone will know it.
Modern Warfare 2 - The Barracks
