Online, the matchmaking is a bit rough – your only options are to search for games of a particular type, any type, or host a private match.
Still, the consoles could have used split-screen or at least system link play for some fine offline co-op. As you could probably tell from this review’s intro, I didn’t miss it too much on Xbox 360.
Note that the PC version gets some extra longevity from 16-player deathmatch, a mode the console ports lacks. I expect they’ll put new maps up for sale before too long though. You can replay them on higher difficulties for variety, but more maps still would have been better. At present, there are only three maps for each non-campaign game mode. While V2’s co-op modes are pretty much all that, they aren’t quite a bag of chips too. I suppose Rebellion thought it might be too frustrating in a group setting. Oh, and the highest difficulty, Sniper Elite, is strangely unavailable in campaign co-op. The host player can set the difficulty for each game type as well – a good thing since not everyone wants to deal with the extra variables that affect the sniping on higher difficulties. The injured player even gets to shoot at oncoming foes with a pistol, just like in Splinter Cell: Conviction. In all modes but Overwatch, players can revive each other when downed. If the sniper doesn’t take out the incoming enemies while the spotter does his job, the latter will be killed and you’re forced to restart from either scratch or the most recent checkpoint. Both jobs are actually fun to play and necessary for success. The Spotter not only marks targets for his sniping buddy, he also has to perform tasks like recovering plans and planting bombs on targets. One player snipes while the other is only armed with machine gun, pistol, and binoculars.