Battlefield: Bad Company multiplayer is all about gold. One team has it, the other team wants it. And despite the multitude of technologically advanced armaments that you and your squad have access to throughout the game, this gold is kept in simple locked chests that can be blown up with, say, 4 or 5 grenades.

While it' s your pretty standard Battlefield class-based gameplay (you choose your type of character with for which you have corresponding weapons/skills), this battle for gold adds some arcadey fun moments. You see, the gold is divided into several chests—with each chest the offense destroys, the more advantages they get. Respawn points become closer and advanced weapons and vehicles are unlocked.

The result is a game the will consistently start slow are grow more ludicrous as men on foot are replaced by men in tanks and plenty of the always fulfilling air support (nothing like airstriking a defenseless building).

And it works, aided by a pretty unique and complimentary respawn system. One can either choose to respawn at their current base, or, for the gamblers out there, respawn with your squad. In other words, you enter by the action, but you' ll have to dodge bullets in a possibly outnumbered/outgunned situation.

But as for these promises of destructible environments—I' m not certain that it' s a concept that designers have quite grasped yet.

As a DICE employee explained to me, destruction in games is complicated because gamers really don' t want everything to be destructible. While leveling a building sounds fun, the map I played on was nothing but buildings. Imagine leveling the whole playing field and being left with a few withering blades of grass on an open plain. Maybe the first time the idea sounds fun. The second or third? Not so much.

So the way destructible environments work in Battlefield: Bad Company is pretty much this: trees can be knocked over and walls can be blown through. But a building' s frame will always stay intact, even if a million bajillion nuclear bombs were to drop in close proximity.

I know, the compromise doesn' t sound so bad. A guy is shooting you from a window. You shoot your grenade launcher, blowing away his cover. Then you shoot him in the ass until he dies.

This part is fun, no doubt. And it opens up a slew of new strategies.

But where the game becomes less fulfilling is during those McGuyeresque moments of improvisation. For instance, you are on the bottom floor of a two-story building and decide, what the hell, I' ll blow the floor out from under the sniper who' s upstairs. This doesn' t work. And the same seemed to apply for the moments when you could get above a building and wanted to make a surprise entrance through the roof. Certain things don' t blow up that really should.

The thing is, I don' t even fault the game. It seems more likely to be a situation similar to the first 3D platformers; things weren' t quite right and nobody knew why. That' s how Bad Company felt...just a hair off of really grasping the exciting concept of truly destructible environments.

All of that said, I' m sure many will have loads of fun with the game. And I' ll definitely give it another shot at launch. No pun intended