This review is based strictly on the single-player experience. I have played the multiplayer, though on PS4, and can say it was a pretty standard CoD game in that regards. That being said, I installed this game last night and played through it today (and streamed it, it will be up on my YouTube later, and should be on my Twitch currently).

TL;DR - As a Triple-A title, CoD:WW2 looks great but really lacks in basic areas that aren't acceptable for a high budget game. It eschews realism in nonsensical ways in the campaign via weapon damage, unnecessarily breaks immersion between missions, and has terrible vehicle controls.

My biggest issue is weapon damage: many of the weapons in this game use devastatingly powerful ammunition, but feel like pellet guns. Damage fall off is insane, an FG42 fires the same cartidge as a Kar98, yet the damage output per round is very different, ESPECIALLY at range. I understand weapon balancing for the sake of multiplayer, but for single-player, it doesn't make sense. In fact, I felt more John Rambo with a MP44 than with a FG42, BAR, or an MG42 (the MG42 also doesn't let you resupply it's ammo, so it's never worth picking up). What's worse is headshots. At any sort of distance between you and your target, guns that are not bolt-action rarely kill with one heady. A SVT-40 has an effective range of 500m (or 1000m with a scope) and fires 7.62x54R rounds (which IRL were banned from use at a firing range I frequented because the rounds were making their way outside the building through the backstops) but can take three or four shots to a kraut's dome before it kills him at 20m+.

The campaign in this is OK, but the game has some pretty infuriating issues that aren't acceptable. The narration and cutscenes were fine, but after each mission, it breaks immersion by kicking you out to the mission select screen, then has you select "start mission" TWO TIMES to start a mission. In a couple missions, it switches you from one character to another, which leads back to the point you left off the first character. While it is a neat idea, it still creates aother disconnect from the narrative. Finally, your AI squad mates are the worst. While most of the guns you find do crap for damage, your teammates might as well not be there. Aside from essentially being vending machines, they don't help much at all. At one point the player is tasked with defending a position with a handful of AI teammates. While defending one side, enemies would make their way behind the AI squad mates and shoot the player without any intervention from the AI allies. While that is the most egregious example, it seems like the AI are allowed to kill one enemy for every so many the player kills.

Finally, controls were fine except controlling the tank and plane with a keyboard and mouse was atrocious. I had to plug in a controller to beat the tank level, and even then it was a pain. Sherman tanks have a crew of 5: A driver, a co-driver, a gunner, a loader, and a commander. However, the player must single-handedly drive and shoot. Despite being pretty common in many games involving tanks, Sledgehammer managed to make the ordeal incredibly unintuitive. While controlling the tank with WASD, occasionally A or D would drive the tank forward or back rather than W and S, sometimes they would switch back despite the orientation of the turret (and player view) almost justifying A and D being used. Sometimes the tank would sit and stutter trying to decide to move forward/backward or rotate. It was infuriating. Not a lot to say on flight controls, as they were just bad, but at least I didn't need a controller, at least. Definitely not a flight sim.