Now onto co-op. This is an entirely separate mode from the single-player story campaign, though there is some overlap in terms of characters and setting. The mission we played, Exfiltration, had us sneaking into a Tehran apartment building to rescue a high-value hostage. The game doesn't force you to play in any particular way, but it was dead obvious that DICE wants you to take a stealthy approach to this mission. There were several occasions when our team of two snuck up behind a conveniently matched pair of enemies who happened to have their backs turned to us. Predictable as it was, there's no denying how satisfying it was to coordinate who would take each enemy, and then counting to three before the two of us pulled the triggers on our silenced pistols.

In fact, the whole tone of the first half of this mission felt worlds apart from what we've seen thus far from Battlefield 3's story campaign. Silently creeping through dimly lit basements and hallways was very different from the sprawling set pieces of the single-player campaign, but that soon changed once we managed to rescue our man. It was loud as soon as we made it back onto the street level, as a convoy of friendly Humvees began moving through the streets. We had to contend with enemies perched up on the balconies and windows of the various buildings flanking the streets. It was a big, open shoot-out that required us to use the thermal sights on our light machine gun in order to be effective. And we managed to make pretty good progress, too, before both of us died and utterly failed the mission.