[Editor's Note (10/28/11): After posting this review, we made a few small additions that expand on the multiplayer description in the initial text.]

As endless as our real-world wars seem, they're nothing compared to the gun-crazed paranoid fantasyland of Battlefield 3. Here the worst-case scenario is as inevitable as the setting sun, and scanning shoes at airports won't make a lick of difference.

After a cinematic opening that sees you scurry through a New York City commuter train, the solo campaign flashes back to an overly familiar frame story. As Marine Staff Sergeant Henry Blackburn, you're handcuffed to a table while a pair of belligerent bureaucrats question your motives and demand details about your past adventures. (Um, Call of Duty: Black Ops, anyone?)

Across a steady stream of flashbacks, what begins as a workaday battle against People’s Liberation and Resistance insurgents in Iraq quickly turns into a race to prevent two missing nukes from detonating in heavily populated urban centers. You'll occasionally take control of a tank operator in the Middle East and a shadowy Russian operative in Europe, but most of the tale focuses on Blackburn’s recent adventures.

As contrived as the basic setup is, it provides a natural narrative hub for disparate combat experiences. One has you defending the streets of Iraq from resistance forces while earthquakes rattle your teeth. In another, you’ll take part in an air strike from the passenger seat of an F-18. Others let you provide overwatch as a rooftop sniper, or thunder across dusty wastes in a tank outside of Tehran. There's no shortage of imagination in terms of basic scenario construction.

Unfortunately, the campaign makes a habit of trading any sense of on-the-ground, moment-to-moment improvisation for unconvincing action-movie theatricality. Close-quarters confrontations devolve into limp button-tapping prompts, and it often seems like you spend far more time sprinting around while dramatic music thumps than actually fighting. More distressingly, there's little practical use of the series' famous destructible cover, despite occasional flanking opportunities and later missions that briefly put you in more open ground, Crumbling concrete and falling trees impart some sense of realism, but they rarely have any impact on your tactical choices.

Sign up for a free Origin account with EA, link your Gamertag to it, then log in at battlelog.battlefield.com. There you'll gain access to a wide array of statistics, view battle reports for every match, connect with friends to form virtual platoons, and track your progress toward unlockable gear and commendations.