I've played the single-player half of Killzone 2 already and didn't care for it. Now I've been able to play the multiplayer half.

Read the rest of the review after the jump.

In Killzone 2, you get your first unlockable at 200 points, which is when you can select the shotgun or SMG for your single character class instead of the default assault rifle. At 550 point, you get the light machinegun. At 1100 points, you get the rocket launcher. You can be a medic at 350 points, an engineer at 800, a tactician at 1450, an assault gunner at 1850, a saboteur at 2300, and a scout at 2800. When you get 80 kills, you get a second grenade. If you play eight missions in which you earn at least 20 points, you get extra ammo above and beyond the two clips you start out with. Once you've revived 40 players (something you can't begin to do until you're a medic, which requires 350 points) you get your own medpack. If 40 players use your spawn point, which you can't drop until you've earned the 1,850 points it takes to be a tactician, you can call in an air support drone. If you kill 40 enemies while disguised, which you can't do until you've got the 2300 points to unlock the saboteur, you can drop remotely detonated explosives.

So how quickly do you earn these points?

I have no idea. I've logged three hours online, but I haven't earned a single point towards my next promotion. Not one. My online profile reads zero points, zero kills, zero assists, and an accuracy of zero percent (it also lists zero deaths, which is at least a stat I can be proud of). None of these stats is true. Over the course of several separate sessions since the game was released on Friday, I've been unable to get through a single round of Killzone 2 without being dropped and presented with one of about four or five different error codes. I was never credited with any of the points I would have earned during a match.

But let's pretend for a moment that I wasn't trying to play Killzone 2 during a botched opening weekend, in which the game's website was mostly down and the developers were caught unawares by the simple fact that some players were setting up matches against bots to help them level their characters. Let's pretend that I'm a shooter fan of average skill, interested in investing time in the latest AAA title with cutting-edge graphics on my Playstation 3. Let's pretend that Killzone 2 is working as advertised for me.

Even then, I would still be skeptical of a system that locks so much of the content - the interplay among the classes, the different weapons and gadgets, the flexibility of mixing and matching "badges" for primary and secondary abilities - behind extended sessions of competitive online gameplay. Killzone 2 confuses rewarding dedicated players with punishing new players. It's one thing to play a lot, developing your skill in the process, and also getting better guns and gadgets. But it's something else entirely to dump new players in with little more than a pistol. It's like having to grind Team Fortress 2 achievements with the soldier before you're allowed to play any other class. It's like joining a game of Counter-Strike well underway, except instead of chopping the action into short frequent rounds, it's stretched out over the course of weeks and you're not likely to be able to afford your first submachine gun until a few days in, much less any armor or grenades. There's a reason Counter-Strike progresses quickly and Team Fortress 2 is so multi-faceted. They don't want you to lose interest. They know a gamer's attention span is a commodity in short supply, highly demanded and dearly earned. Killzone 2 doesn't seem to realize that you could be playing any of about a dozen other really good online shooters. It expects you to pay your dues for a while.

Consider Killzone 2 in comparison to the perk system in Call of Duty 4, where you start out participating in the overall balance, getting to chose among several classes as soon as you jump in. Or even Battlefield 2142, where all the classes are available from the very start, but the more you play, the deeper you develop the class of your choice. Those are both games with long-term unlockables that don't discourage a new player. Alternatively, compare Killzone 2 to Resistance 2, a game with all the weapons and all of the powers unlocked from the start. You pick your weapon, you pick your special power, then you jump in on equal footing with everyone else. Resistance 2 is generous and democratic. Killzone 2 is demanding and elitist.

But I don't mean to discredit what Killzone 2 is attempting. This is obviously a game aimed at hardcore fans willing and eager to dig long for their gameplay. In fact, I suspect Sony wants to appeal to a segment of online shooter fans for whom Resistance's whimsy and SOCOM's tactical fussiness don't work. Killzone 2 has a steep and serious leveling curve liable to weed out anyone who isn't serious about their Killzone. Consider it a game made for the sort of dedicated fans it cultivated before it ever came out.