Surprisingly good and short campaign.
Dialogue and character interactions are pretty hilarious sometimes. Some few bugs here and there but nothing serious or annoying.

I played this through Game Pass and couldn't play the Vietnam expansion or even multiplayer. Everything but the main campaign is borked and servers won't even allow you to log in with your user and password. Thanks EA.

Great shooter nonetheless.

One of the most fun online multiplayer games I've played; this was my gateway drug to the Battlefield series which are easily my most played games of all time in terms of hours.

While Bad Company 2 does not have have some of the advanced techniques and QOL of later titles such as prone, side running movements, etc. it does offer incredibly well-designed levels such as Panama Canal that provide fun multiplayer sessions whether you play they classic Conquest or Rush modes.

The single-player is surprisingly fun and well put together with likable and humorous characters and considering these modes are more often than not an afterthought from developers since the meat and potatoes of these games is the online multiplayer.

I finally played this after owning it and not touching it for...around 7 years, I think. I am a huge fan of the first game and I have no reason for waiting to play this as long as I did.

It maintains all the best parts of the last game. The tone is still fun, the characters are as good as ever, the dialogue is laugh-out-loud funny, the graphics are still really great, and the sound design remains some of the best in all of video games.

The plot isn't quite as memorable this time around, and it's a little rocky on the delivery sometimes, but it's serviceable. It's got some cool ideas to it!

Other notes...

Good friendly AI. Almost too good. They are very useful and can basically take out the enemies for you if you leave them to it. But they charge ahead too much and they get in your sights a lot. Enemy AI stands around exposed a lot, but they also do a good job of making you keep your head down.

Sound. Graphics. Amazing. Destructible environments are just as fun to play with as last time, and they still look awesome. For a ten year old game, it looks terrific, and that sound...however, there is a surprising amount of pop-in visually, from distances I wouldn't expect, including from enemies that are within shooting range and pop in and out depending on when you zoom in or out. And there were more than a few times where a sound effect simply didn't play because of a glitch or whatever.

Weapons: still not authentic with reload animations but now in the other direction. Before, he would needlessly reload every time as though he ran the gun to empty. This time, he never reloads it that way even if it was empty. (Some guns retain the original issue.)

Some magazine counts restored to normal. Shell casings eject into your vision instead of away from it. Bullet drop effects are awesome. Just about every single gun looks, sounds, and feels powerful. I'm happy using any of them.

Enemies have great death animations as well as wounding nicely. I enjoy when shooter enemies can take hits and stagger but still come back. It feels more realistic and adds a bit of challenge. And fun.

Characters say "fuck" a lot. I'm pretty sure the first game is T and the characters speak accordingly. This time around they really lean into the M rating, which wouldn't bother me except at times it's like every other line. It stuck out and distracted me.

It has a way of capturing amusing, offbeat, seemingly irrelevant military stuff that makes it so funny. Feels a little like it was influenced by Generation Kill. Seems like military consulted on it. Only someone who had served would have the grizzled infantry sergeant crack a joke about PowerPoint.

Some of the best minigun content ever. As games go on, they get more authentic with how miniguns work. When a gun shoots approximately 6,000 rounds a minute, or 100 rounds a second, it looks and sounds a certain way. And it has a certain effect. Most games don't really capture it, but hoo boy. BC2 brings it.

Final thoughts: gameplay-wise, first person shooters don't get much better. I never got bored shredding my way through enemies, and I actually found myself wanting more. Throw in the humor, characters, and excellent production values, and you got a stew going...

P.S. Oh! And that ending...awesome level and awesome final moment. Felt COD-esque but not as overblown.

Somewhere online I read someone describing a game as a "roller-coaster shooter." Realizing that this phrase accurately described this game made me like this game somewhat less. At its worst, it's a thinly-disguised shooting gallery, where you walk through "totally not a corridor" and blast some enemies who pop up from behind cover. Whack-a-mole, but with the American Military. The "immersive" damage system combined with the relatively chaotic nature of the combat meant that I spent much of the game either crouching behind cover or trying to figure out what just killed me. Doom, this ain't.
At its best, though, it feels like being part of an awesome war movie. Much like Gears of War, the storyline is simple, but effective: a special ops team consisting of the no-nonsense sergeant, the nerd, the redneck, and the bland playable character have to find a superweapon before the bad guys find it first. No frills, no convoluted development, and no lame attempts at making the story deep. The game's missions consist mostly of scripted set pieces, but I'd be lying if I didn't think that some of these were pretty cool. Again, there were parts of the game that made me feel like I was living through a war movie--especially the parts where I got to blast stuff apart with an RPG.
I feel like I would give this game another star if I were good enough at shooters to play the multiplayer. However, as far as the campaign goes, it's a solid three-and-a-half stars: a meat-and-potatoes shooter that doesn't amaze me, but doesn't overstay it's welcome either.

La campaña es terrible. Las distintas secciones a pie, en tanque, con francotirador y donde apuntas puntos de bombardeo son de lo más genérico y poco inspirado que he visto. La historia es pésima en su guion, personajes y narrativa, sin mencionar que tiene un final abierto innecesario que quedó inconcluso para siempre.
No doy una peor calificación solamente porque estoy seguro que el multijugador en su momento fue algo especial, sin embargo, el juego en la actualidad resulta difícil de recomendar por mi parte.