@Marcus:
I'm not really entirely sure of Shepards motives, either. I may have missed something, but perhaps his goal was to go down in history as a great american hero by secretly starting an insanely huge war with Russia and trying to take credit for ending it? You know it had to have been him who tipped off Makorov or whatever his name was as to the double agent who infiltrated his group. In hindsight it makes perfect sense that Shepard chose a Private to take on such an important covert mission. It was set up to fail from the get-go. Perhaps Shepard was closer to Makarov than I initially thought. Maybe Shepards contact info was on that DSM that you pay hell retrieving, which was why he had to tie up loose ends with a gas can and cigar like he did. (<-Biggest OMFG moment in my videogame playing experience. Even trumping the Nuke scene in CoD4, for me.)
My bad dude, didn't see this until now - that's pretty wild, I never thought that it was Shepherd (and I'm positive that's how it's spelled
) who tipped Makarov that Private Allen was an undercover agent - what exactly made you think that? I mean, after the war started, I guess Shepherd saw his opportunity for glory and for military might and avenging the deaths of his soldiers 5 years ago (more on that later), but I would really hope Infinity Ward's writers weren't seriously high enough to write the character of a General who was crazy enough to
start a war for those reasons - but who knows, I thought the story as a whole was a bit weak, disjointed, and hard to follow, so that might have been it - but I honestly suspect it was more the product of hasty writing-by-committee
(other evidence being more minor but still noticeable omissions, such as there never being any explanation as to who the hell that VIP dude in the Diner meat locker was in the first Ranger mission in Virginia after the Russians invade, nor who that dead dude in the Panic Room was at the end of the second of those Ranger missions)
Anyway, even if I thought the overall story that tied them together was a bit weak, there were so many really fantastic individual standout moments in the single-player campaign that I can still say I heartily enjoyed the experience
I LOVED breaching the rooms in the Oilrig level (though I thought the thermal-scope smoke part at the end was annoying as hell), and taking out dudes launching Javelins south of the Washington monument with the Barret 50 cal and thermal scope, and then unleashing the Javelins on them - and then of course, the previously detailed ending experience. So yeah, now that all that's been established, more petty complaints
- IMO Ghost is so obviously (and lamely) an attempt to "complete the old squad" by pretty much bringing Gaz (from CoD4) back (same fucking voice actor with ridiculous exaggerated cockney accent, and Ghost never takes off his skull-print balaclava and sunglasses, so we never see his face, undoubtedly all the more so we can project Gaz's onto it
). But the dude just has no freakin' personality at all, few (if any) memorable lines and moments, sadly a shell of his "former self"
- The ripoffs from "The Rock" are ridiculous, from the infiltration of the gulag involving a shower room shootout (complete with people on the upper balcony surrounding the perimeter), the popping of green smoke on the roofs to call off the airstrike, and Shepherd's motivation being similar to why Hummel (Ed Harris' character, the head antagonist) carried out his takeover of Alcatraz, which, depending on how far the IW took the parallel, might give weight to your theory that Shepherd wanted to start the war
(that's what I was referring to above, when he says "5 years ago, I lost 30,000 men, and the world just fuckin' watched", when he I assume is referring to the nuke part in CoD4)
They're actually in CoD4 Modern Warfare (AKA MW1, I guess?) as well, early in the game in the TV station level in the "unspecified middle eastern country" 
)
