Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is not hard, and it would be dishonest and misleading to suggest it is.

It's HARD, very hard, and your enemies want you deader than a doornail. Following a series of missions through Mexico in order to rescue the president of the United States, your squad will embark on brutal patrols, recons, and defend operations in singleplayer or coop with your friends. These missions last a very long time, though, and in multiplayer, if you lose your squad, you have to start over from the beginning. This is annoying because you *will* fail the missions due to enemy soldiers or emplacements hiding somewhere you failed to see, and when you cross into their field of vision, if you still do not see them, they will shoot you. Or explode you, whichever one they feel more like doing.

Therefore, you have to restart and hope you can find the enemy, who more often than not reveals himself by *firing at you,* so you only have a split second to actually see him and take him out. If you did not, you have to play again.

These moments are few and far between, but the fact they exist demonstrates how unforgiving this game can be. In multiplayer, if you die, you take the place of an AI squadmate, but there are only 4 of these.

That said, the game itself is of very high quality, and it's genuinely exciting and fun to play. The game gets good marks for excellent construction, but the AI is where it lacks. In order to compensate for AI enemies of below average intelligence, your enemies will see you and begin firing upon you with pinpoint accuracy from the moment you enter their sphere. Chances are, they *will* hit you, and it's because they have been made unnaturally superb shots.

If you're like me, and you're up for some punishment, you will find a lot of great gameplay here, and it is an excellent military sim. It can be utterly frustrating, however, and I cannot understate that. I rate it 4 stars because I've had a lot of enjoyment from it, but there are some missions I still have not been able to get all the way through in coop, no matter how I approach a situation, no matter how careful I am. This is a hard game, but not a bad game. It just isn't for everyone, and even people who enjoy these types of games will become upset at the overly-accurate AI bad guys. Very unforgiving.