EA’s Army of Two is getting a lot of publicity as being a great co-op first person shooter. Conflict: Denied Ops offers a similar premise, yet it is being seemingly passed over by gamers and underrated by the gaming media.

This title has all of the best features of your average first person shooter. There is a more than adequate plot, tied together with cinematic cut scenes and missions that build off of each other. You need to use cover to succeed, and your enemies use cover as well. You can also lean around objects to minimize your exposure while firing away. The environment is destructible, and there are plenty of things to shoot that cause explosive mayhem, which includes some rag doll physics that send your victims flying through the air. The weapon and weapon upgrade variety is sufficient, complete with sniper rifles, various types of grenades, machine guns, rocket launchers, C4 explosive, night vision goggles, and more. There are a sufficient number of checkpoints, and you can save anywhere, anytime. All of the standard multiplayer modes are available online, including death match, team death match, conquest, and co-op play. A significant amount of stats are tracked for you as a player, and for your work as either Lang or Graves, in all game modes. Lastly, you get to drive armored vehicles to fight enemy armor, or to just blow stuff up with more panache.

And, what makes this game even better than your typical shooter is the relationship between the two protagonists (Lang and Graves), how they interact, their abilities and strengths, and how you control them. They’re both FBI, yet they’re on a series of paramilitary covert operations. (Who knew?) Lang is new to these kinds of assignments, while Graves is the grizzled veteran. Lang is the “street guy” from Miami, and Graves is the “redneck” from…Alaska. Lang carries the big guns (machine guns, rocket launchers, etc.), and Graves is the sniper. You can switch your control to either guy at any time, and the game play is as varied as they seemingly are when you’re in a firefight, due to their different skills and weapons.

What’s great is that they’re not tied to each other in any way, meaning you can move Graves to a perch and have him snipe, while taking Lang and rushing a building with the heavy guns. Whichever one you’re controlling will do a decent job of dispatching enemies, asking for assistance, or asking for cover. You can even identify targets that you’d like your partner to take out. Also, when one guy goes down, you have four minutes to heal him. If you’re under fire and not close to him, this becomes a game within a game.

It’s not without its flaws, though. You can take several shots before dying, as can your enemies, save the sniper headshot, which results in an instant kill. The enemy follows a scripted pattern (almost humorously at times), and they won’t come to the aid of their comrades from another part of the compound until you reach their “zone of control.” It isn’t too obvious, though, but once you play a couple of missions, this common method of programming the enemy AI is apparent. Driving and fighting in the heavy armor feels a bit like it was an afterthought, as the controls are a bit wonky and the vehicles don’t really have that “tons of destruction coming at you” type of feel. Despite the online multiplayer game modes available, very few people are actually playing this game, which is a tad problematic. .Also, for the single player, there’s less than ten hours of gameplay, unless you decide to go through the missions again at another difficulty level. So there is certainly a question of longevity.

Another problem rears itself while playing the single player game. When you want Graves and Lang to stay together, you constantly have to issue a command to have your AI partner follow you. If not, he’ll stay put, and he could be half a mile away before you realize it, especially when clearing out buildings and progressing through the mission. Some objectives include things that only one of the two characters can do, which means it’s time to wait for him to catch up. It would be easier if it were the other way around, meaning your partner stays with you by default, and you issue a command to have him do something else.

There are ten missions connecting a nefarious global terrorist plot, involving multiple nations and taking you to various parts of the globe, with a nod to action movies like Blackhawk Down and Under Siege, among other stereotypical environs. You won’t breeze through most areas, especially when you first approach. You’ll need to use cover and tactics to succeed. Each mission has about a half-dozen objectives, most of which are revealed during the mission itself. The plot is tied together pretty well. For example, in mission two, you protect a Russian prisoner who gives you intelligence that opens up multiple new missions. It’s not totally linear, so you can pick one of a few available missions to tackle, some of which will open up additional operations. Once you complete a mission, you get automatic weapon upgrades, like a grenade launcher for your machine gun, or a camera to use your sniper rifle to shoot over or around barriers.

The action is fast-paced, intense, and fun, and reminiscent of a blockbuster action film. There’s a little bit of stealth in the game play (especially with Graves), but inevitably, each mission turns into an all-out firefight. It does have a bit of a “been there, done that” feeling to it, until you get to the co-op play, which is where the game really begins to shine.