It’s been a busy week and a half or so on the gaming front. Modern Warfare 2 was released to absolutely staggering sales (it put up about twice the money in 24 hours that The Dark Knight did).

The game put up some impressive scores among reviewers. I wasn’t able to get my hands on it, but I’m sure if I had my review would sound something like “while MW2 is a technically proficient game – even an excellent game – its irritating habit of stringing the player along through a series of adrenaline points and using utterly ridiculous endless enemy spawn points to spew baddies in your direction until you move past a magic cutoff point, coupled with a few areas in which the game pushes moral boundaries in ways nobody has any business pushing, I’m sad to say it’s just not my cup of tea.”  In short, a bit like the first game.

That said, if somebody wanted to send me a copy, I’d give it a whirl and probably revise that statement.

THQ*ICE has announced a content update for their funky little free-to-play MMO Dragonica Online: The Thief as a new playable class. I must confess, I hadn’t ever heard of this title before I received the announcement, but it looks entertaining if you’re into funky little free-to-play MMOs. New content is always a plus – check it out.

In other news, Assassin’s Creed II was released for consoles Tuesday. All signs point to this being a hit – if you liked the first one, there’s more to love here; if you hated the first one, Ubisoft is promising a better experience for you. I had an opportunity to see a demo of the game at PAX ’09 a couple of months ago – it looks slick. Ezio replaces Altiar  as the main character, freerunning now over the rooftops of Renaissance-era Italy, boasting a wrist cannon and Da Vinci’s flying machine as elements of his repertoire. Sadly, however, the PC version of this fine game won’t be arriving til early next year. Sorry, faithful. The consoles have stolen from us again.

Left 4 Dead 2 was also released, to the cheers of some and the cold-hearted boycotting of others. There’s a group of about 35,000 disgruntled Valve fans lurking out there who feel that the developer/publisher is doing them a very wrong turn by making another game; an odd position, in my opinion. They have a few valid points, but Valve has a nearly perfect record when it comes to publishing excellent games, so I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. And hey, Felicia Day is a fan, so it can’t be all bad.

Jerod Jarvis is an independent gaming journalist and founder of Duality Games. He maintains gaming columns for The Washington Times Communities and for The Outpost. When not blogging madly about games, he freelances for the Spokesman-Review in his hometown of Spokane, Washington and attends school at Whitworth University. Check out his presence on Facebook and Twitter to stay up on Duality Games updates and the inside scoop on the gaming news you care about.