franchise has gone from a warmly received shooter to the biggest franchise on the market. Indeed last years

- The Call of Duty franchise is one of the most heralded in the first person shooter genre. So when the announcement of a new game for the franchise comes around it's always a major event and there's a lot of hype and expectations that come with it. Will the multiplayer be amazing?

First available for Xbox 360 , the Call of Duty: Black Ops Annihilation DLC map pack is now available for PS3 via the PlayStation Store at $14.99. Annihilation is the third Black Ops map pack release.

I wasn't incredibly impressed with Treyarch's last outing in the Call of Duty universe, World at War , and followed their latest effort, Call of Duty: Black Ops with mere professional curiosity. Even after a closed-doors showing at E3 2010, I kept my distance. As I see it, I owe Treyarch mad props.

While it holds more first week sales than any other game before it, Black Ops isn't the series' high point. What we have here is a refined and extremely confident product from a studio that has found its feet in the FPS world.

Treyarch get to step out of Infinity Ward's shadow, and become the new torch bearers for Call of Duty. Following in Modern Warfare 2's footsteps, they find their own road...

Call Of Duty, the mere mention of those three words divides public opinion almost more than any others.

Solid campaign with fantastic story driven action; Genuinely does attempt to break into new territory for an FPS; More multi-player maps; modes and customisations than ever; Dead Ops Arcade is a gem of a twin stick shooter; The theatre mode is great

Sometimes you just wish the yellow arrow would go away and let you find your own way from A to B; When the game does attempt to break into new territory; it pulls back from the brink to follow the familiar FPS well-trodden path; Although the story is great the script is clichéd

As if you ever doubted it, Call of Duty is still the best military shooter out there and by quite some margin. It seems its competitors can only watch from a distance and take notes as this juggernaut of FPS gaming ploughs a wide path towards the genre's future.

The Single-Player and Online MP is a dime a dozen experience, but it keeps you entertained because of it's variety.

+ atmosphere rich, + Wager Matches, + Standard but great Single-Player, + A.i; Bot mode (training, + Theater, + Zombie mode

- Mediocre graphics; - Host ended or connection interrupted; - A lot of angry MW players ruin the fun from time to time; - A lot of knifing because the game supports that function; - Some weapons are terrible

You can't keep Black Ops out from under the microscope after the high-profile departure of the creative minds that drove the Call of Duty franchise at Infinity Ward earlier this year.