It is one of the most highly anticipated game releases both for casual gamers and competitive players alike, yet today enthusiasts received a dose of reality that may have dampened any positive feeling they had.

A webcast broadcast on the BASHandSlash.com website featured an interview with Infinity Ward Community Manager, Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling, will have been met with a bad reception by the majority of people awaiting the game. The good news was that the game was going to be released on time, quashing rumours about it being delayed, but that was pretty much the only positive thing on the menu for those wanting to play competitively.

At the top of the gripe list will be the introduction of a system called IW.net that means there will likely be no dedicated servers and no room for any of the mods that make the game work in a competitive environment. For a modification such as promod to work it would have to be approved and then incorporated into IW.net.

They also announced that PunkBuster will no longer be the recognised anti-cheat and MW2 will be moving to VAC, as well as the game being distributed through Steam. All of this casts a huge shadow on the competitive side of the game and will likely pose problems for leagues and competitions who have already picked up MW2 for tournament purposes.

Yock Yitch from BASHandSlash.com summarized things as follows:

General

- IW partnering through Steam is what you will see in the future. Matchmaking is not through Steam, but IW.NET is run in conjunction with Steam.
- GSP's will no longer be renting out servers.
- No PunkBuster. VAC will be used as an anti cheat.
- Retail distribution: Pre-orders will get a disk. Or you could order from Steam.
- DLC may now need to be paid for - not confirmed.
- Piracy was only a small reason for going to IW.NET - not the whole reason.

Clans

- No more clan servers. Private matches, replace clan servers.
- Listen servers will connect to each other.
- IW.NET/Steam will replace the community server admin

Competitive Gaming

- Competitive gaming has changed forever.
- It might be possible in the future for IW engineers to load a "competitive" setting on IW.NET, but it is far from a guarantee. It might also never happen.

Modding

- Modding the game is now very much in question. Fourzerotwo had no info on modding. However, it appears that there will be no mods or maps for MW2.
- Modding in SpecOps? Unknown.

Source: BASHandSlash.com