The Frostbite 2 engine that gave Battlefield 3 life is used well enough here, occasional visual glitches and distracting screen grime notwithstanding. Elsewhere, you use the blazing shine of your enemies' flashlights as beacons for your violence in various locales. Other levels are just as visually impressive, like an on-rails boat shootout during which fires rage and floating debris threatens to ram you. The shooting is occasionally put to good use, too, such as in a noisy showdown during a raging rainstorm, the palm trees waving and bending in response to the heaving winds. You're given the ability to take cover and lean or peek before taking aim, lest you get pelted with lead at times, this encourages you to consider your surroundings and preserve your own well-being rather than rush forward, spraying the room with bullets. The basic shooting and movement models are a good start, not because the guns are that remarkable, but because there's a sense of weight to your sprints and your leaps.
Yet there's something worthy here-the glimmer of a Medal of Honor that might yet hew its own path if the right elements are cultivated.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter doesn't craft such an arc, and thus feels more like a pastiche of shooter tropes than a self-contained experience with its own identity.