So I've been chipping away at 2010's Medal of Honor on those rare moments when playing vidcons don't cause me to feel overwhelming existential dread.
Anyway, awhile back some folks got on this hype train about Spec Ops: The Line being perhaps the first anti-war, anti-shooter shooter... or something like that. (Consume Grantland articles unironically brehs.) I don't really agree with that reading; well, rather, I should say that I agree that that's what was intended by the creative team, I just don't agree that their execution fulfilled that intention. The mall scene in particular was when it crossed over from borderline disturbing violence into Spinal Tap territory for me (coincidentally I'm sure, there's a miniature wargaming shop in this level that has a Folex version of 40K prominently on display).
Medal of Honor 2010 however, I cannot help but feel quite disgusted by shooters while playing it, which I feel pretty confident in saying was not intended in any manner whatsoever by the people who made it. It's nihilistic in its narrative (at least so far) and the sterility of the violence (filtered through large amounts of jargon) is more than off-putting to say the least. I think it was around the time when I found myself flanking through the rubble of an Afghan settlement that my team had had blasted to hell by an AC-130 and came upon an unlawful combatant cowering under organized suppressing fire by just 2 dudes and armed with one of the hodge-podge of Soviet personal arms the disorganized enemies in this game wield that it occurred to me that for the entirety of this game not only had I not been fighting a fair fight, but the game reveled in this asymmetry--and not in a self-aware way... hell, not even in an 80s action movie way, but in a way that was devoid of anything beyond "America's Angels of Death, fuck yeah!"
Having more than a passing familiarity with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, I know the people I'm fighting aren't saints, but holy hell the game does not even bother trying to establish this fact. Even Call of Duty 4 managed to maintain that pretense.