 Try not to get too trigger-happy. The United States is seriously considering privatizing their military forces. Rios and Salem are two private military contractors caught in the middle of a much larger and deeper game that could very well get them killed.
1. Gameplay
 By night, two normal ex-Rangers. It’s a heated time for the United States. Private military contractors like Rios and Salem have proven that the US Military forces are far inferior to their privatized counterparts, and as a result there is a strong push (backed in no small part by SSC) to privatize the entire US Military.  By day, two lean, mean, killing machines. Rios and Salem, the two main characters, just turn out to be pawns in a much larger scheme. They end up taking the fall for the death of a US Senator and, as a result, have to make their way back to Miami in the middle of a hurricane in order to exact their revenge. The story is actually pretty compelling. While parts of the game just seemed like a grind through a ton of enemies just to forward the storyline a bit, the majority made sense for what was going on. There was always a purpose in Salem and Rios’ actions. It may not have always been a positive purpose (they are mercenaries after all), but the ends were always good.  Taking time to ROCK! There were two aspects of this game that made the entire experience worthwhile. First, the game was clearly designed to be cooperative. I have no problem playing a game that’s meant for single players or playing a multiplayer mode with teams, but there are few experiences like a well-made cooperative game. It really helps players learn how to communicate and work with the strengths and weakness of their partner. If one player is an excellent sniper, that person takes long-range weapons. If the other player likes to rush in, draw a lot of attention, and shoot everything, that player takes machine guns and shotguns and goes crazy. Army of Two goes beyond the standard “you two are both here, now kill stuff” kind of deal. The game is designed so that the players will have to help each other as things progress. As the players enter combat, the player that draws the most attention will fill an “aggro meter”. The more aggressive that player’s actions are, the more “aggro” they get. They will become a much more obvious target to enemies, who will take it upon themselves to start shooting at that player while ignoring the second player.  I'm getting all the aggro here. I mention the “ignoring the second player” part because that’s also extremely important. The second player can use the fact that all of the attention is on the other player to sneak behind enemy lines and pick off the strongest enemies with ease. There’s a lot more strategy that goes into working as a team in this game. Everything felt smooth and well developed. The second aspect that was particularly unique (and awesome) was the level of weapon customization. Players could buy a simple AK-47 and modify the parts of that weapon to give extra advantages. These modifications could be as simple as increasing the magazine size (giving a normally 30 round AK-47 as many as 100 rounds per magazine), to as complex as changing out the barrel to increase the amount of damage the weapon deals.  Why own just another machine gun when you can make it gold-plated? The player also had the ability to add silencers to weapons, which would decrease damage and decrease the amount of aggro the player gained from firing, or “pimp out” a weapon. Pimping a weapon would make the entire weapon very ornate and expensive, but very, very obvious to enemies, thus significantly increasing the amount of aggro the player would gain from firing. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If one player knows he will end up drawing the attention with big, powerful, loud weapons, he can increase the speed at which he would gain that attention by adding on attachments to increase the rate of aggro. Like I said before, there’s a lot of strategy that went into this game. Unfortunately, the complete reliance on cooperative gameplay made the single-player gameplay feel a bit weak. If the player works through the campaign without a human partner, the computer AI will take over for the other character. However, while usually helpful, the computer AI was not nearly as intuitive as a human counterpart, and as a result it felt like the human player had to do a lot more work. Overall this is the kind of game that I look forward to. It has its rough edges, but the heavily cooperative design of the game was a lot of fun. Definitely something I would recommend to my friends.
NOTE: It looks as if EA has taken the online servers down. So unless you’re playing split-screen cooperative with a friend, you won’t be able to play with other people at all.
Explosion mechanics were the other major problem I had with this game. When something explodes next to the player, the player will be thrown in a ragdoll-like effect across the map. It took what seemed like an absurd amount of time for the player to stop moving and get back up again. During that time, enemies would undoubtedly be shooting at the player, which meant that the player could be easily downed without any way to prevent this problem.  I almost got thrown into the fire! Sometimes groups of enemies could do a lot of damage, especially on the higher difficulty levels. It felt a bit unfair, but especially during the "Back to Back" sessions when the player was forced to shoot dozens of enemies without going into cover. Then the game would randomly remove the player from the back to back scenario. The player would then have mere seconds to run to cover before he would get downed.  Ugh, stop shooting me already! Sometimes the game had problems with bugs or what direction the player was supposed to go in, but this happened so infrequently that it’s barely worth mentioning. 2. Parental Notices
 Evidently the rounds are so powerful that guys frequently flip upside down after getting shot. However, this game is still a shooter and as a result, the player will have to shoot through thousands upon thousands of enemies.  Just one of many.
3. Other Factors
 At least it's not an underwear bomb. These enemies are no longer a factor after Rios and Salem leave the Middle East.
 Oops... The game as a whole does not paint the US military in a positive light. It almost outright says that privatized military corporations can do exactly the same things as the entire US military but exponentially more efficiently and effectively.
There are online modes, but it’s really an insignificant portion of this game. The only time a person might play online for an extended period of time is to find a companion to play through the main campaign cooperatively. The majority of the online multiplayer game modes are relatively boring and can get very confusing, but the community seemed to be mature. Still, don’t expect to spend much time playing this game outside of the main campaign.
 Yeah, that parachute would not help at all. In one section the player will even have to parachute through a canyon with large columns and cave systems. I’m not sure how the airflow allowed them to fly perfectly through the canyon, but the worst thing the player has to worry about are the snipers and other enemies all trying to shoot the players down.  Which would hurt worse, hitting the canyon wall and then falling to the river down below or getting shot by the snipers? The player will also have to drive a hovercraft in the middle of a flooded and hurricane-hit Miami. Again, the player will have to drive around enemies who are all trying to shoot him and his friend down. This includes a section where the two main characters have to drive a hovercraft out of a crashing plane and successfully land onto a choppy ocean without dying.  Oooooh frick! There’s also a scene where the players have to rush to the far end of a sinking aircraft carrier. Huge F-16s will slide across the deck at the player as he’s trying to run up towards the escape boat.  I don't think planes are supposed to fly that way.
Magic is not an issue in this game.
Early on in the game, the player has to destroy a few very nasty chemical weapons that are being housed in a large bunker complex. The main characters even have to walk through some of the weapon’s gases to save an injured US soldier. The soldier is clearly diseased as a result of exposure to the chemicals, but the main characters are never affected.  Uh, I would get that checked out... Torture That same soldier was also tortured for information by his captors. While the torture seems small compared to the exposure to the chemical weapons, the soldier is clearly affected by the experience.  That's not very nice.
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