Why are we saying that Steam MW2 is flawed and broken?

Because Steam's version of MW2 has no mod support, security issues, broken weapons (e.g. non-working silencers etc.), bad balancing and an useless anti-cheat that is easily bypassable and can even allow people to play WITHOUT a steam account.
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This guide will show you all security and gameplay flaws.

The average MW2 player doesn't know about this.
Security vulnerabilities are not only in MW2 but also in other CODs such as BO1, BO2, MW3, Ghosts and probably IW.
The most vulnerable CoDs are Treyarch's with Black Ops 1 being the most vulnerable CoD game out of them all.

Did you ever hear about an article of an security issue that allowed anyone to get full control of a host's PC through MW2? It was there since game release, and Activision fixed it with the last patch in 2016 while it has been reported to them for years without taking action immediately.
But don't try to Google it, all articles about that have been deleted by Activision so they don't lose trust of their PC players.

But wait, there are more exploits that are still not fixed!

You might ask: "What are these exploits?"
There are about 10 different RCE (remote code execution) exploits (probably more that haven't been found yet) in MW2.
From things like someone being able to delete your game to sending malware to your computer.
We'll list a few of the ones we know to show you how unsecure this game is.

This allows someone to change/rename your localization.txt which can be found in your game directoy through RCE.
That will cause your game to crash until you download a new and working localization.txt.

This exploit allows you to remotely delete someone's game or specific files in order for their game to stop working.

This exploit would allow you to execute commands such as sv_cheats 1.

If sv_cheats 1 is enabled, you are free to use cheats dvars such as:
"compassEnemyFootstepEnabled 1" which will show all enemies (except for the ones who have Heartbreaker aka. ninja) on your radar at all times as if you had a permanent UAV.
"fx_draw 0" which stops drawing FX effects on your screen (e.g. no more explosive effects and smoke from smoke grenades will be invisible etc.).
"r_fog 0" which will remove the map's fog from your client and you will have a visual advantage.
"r_fullbright 1" which stops the rendering of lightning effects and gives you a very powerful visual advantage on darker maps.

This is one of the more dangerous exploits.

You might ask what this is, it's simple.
What it allows you to do is to send any GSC to every client like a server would do when you connect to one in COD4.

Why is this exploit dangerous?
Because someone can send you GSC with malicious code in it which can harm your PC.

This is the most used exploit and most people that use it don't even know about it!

Ever joined a modded lobby with someone using a cheap mod menu or something similar?
Well, these people can modify your game files and change cheat protected dvars, some of which remain after you left the game. This is usually an option in mod menus which is listed as "bad dvars".
Changing those dvars, VAC might be thinking that you're cheating and will ban you from the game.

Do you think everyone who said "I joined a modded lobby and got banned." is a liar?
Well, I know some people including some of ourselves that it happened to, most people nowadays who own MW2 on steam have a VAC ban but steam forum moderators will tell you that it is not possible to get banned by this.

Yes it is, don't lie to your users.

Well this one was private for a while until a friend of ours released it a year ago.
He made the youtube video private, so don't bother to look for it.
But it's been released a few days ago on the M.P.G.H forums means there will be a lot of people playing/cheating without a steam account soon.

What this allows you to do is to bypass steam's authentification to let you play without a Steam account means you will be "immune to VAC and people spamming your actual account" because you don't even use one.

Basically you can do whatever you want without any consequences.
You'll also be able to play the DLCs for free.

As if it wasn't enough, there are also heavy flaws in the gameplay of this game.

This part of the guide will list each mistake Infinity Ward made when they created the weapon assets for Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2: Multiplayer. This list is based on the final patched variants of the weapons assets.

-This doesn't include weapon names that are misspelled in any language other than english (there are similar misspelled names in other languages).

-Non-working silencer means that you will still appear on the radar when you fire the weapon (you're NOT supposed to appear on the radar while firing a silenced weapon).

Primaries
Assault Rifles
ACR (masada_mp) - No ADS sway.
AK-47 (ak47_mp) - No ADS sway.
F2000 (fn2000_mp) - No ADS sway.
FAL (fal_mp) - “FAL Grenade Laucher”. Reflex reticle is misaligned. Magazine floats below the weapon on high FOVs. Holographic Sight increases min. damage.
FAMAS (famas_mp) - No ADS sway.
M16 (m16_mp) - Nothing.
M4A1 (m4_mp) - No ADS sway.
SCAR-H (scar_mp) - No ADS sway.
TAR-21 (tavor_mp) - No ADS sway. Weapon floats while sprinting on high FOVs.

Sub Machine Guns
Mini-Uzi (uzi_mp) - Nothing.
MP5K (mp5k_mp) - Nothing.
P90 (p90_mp) - P90 Extended Mags has a x1.75 sprint time.
UMP45 (ump45_mp) - Extremely high min. damage of 35 meanwhile other SMGs have 20.
Vector (kriss_mp) - No ADS sway.

Light Machine Guns
AUG HBAR (aug_mp) - Heartbeat sensor clips through arm when using Grip + HBS attachment.
L86 LSW (sa80_mp) - Heartbeat sensor clips through arm on first raise and reload anims.
M240 (m240_mp) - Non-working silencer.
MG4 (mg4_mp) - Regular sight ADS is misaligned. The MG4 with FMJ is incorrectly named “MG4 Explosive Rounds”. Non-working silencer.
RPD (rpd_mp) - Nothing.
General (affects all LMGs) - no EMP scope overlay (scope_overlay_m14_night_emp) applied for the thermal scope of all LMGs.

Sniper Rifles
Barrett .50cal (barrett_mp) - No ADS sway when acog is applied.
Intervention (cheytac_mp) - No ADS sway when acog is applied. Reload empty glitching. Has the highest scope sway out of all snipers, making it practically inferior compared to the Barrett .50cal in every possible way.
M21 EBR (m21_mp) - No ADS sway when acog is applied.
WA2000 (wa2000_mp) - No ADS sway when acog is applied.

Riot Shield
Riot Shield (riotshield_mp) - Nothing.

Secondaries
Machine Pistols
G18 (glock_mp) - Nothing.
M93 Raffica (baretta393_mp) - Iron Sight is slightly misaligned.
PP2000 (pp2000_mp) - Nothing.
TMP (tmp_mp) - Nothing.

Shotguns
AA-12 (aa12_mp) -
M1014 (m1014_mp) -
Model 1887 (model1887_mp) - Knife animation has two arms clipping into each other when equipping the akimbo attachment.
Ranger (ranger_mp) - Akimbo increases reload time but doesn't increase the ammo add time.
Spas-12 (spas12_mp) - ADS movespeed of 2 meanwhile other shotguns have 1. FMJ doesn't work properly and only adds the visual bullet impact.
Striker (striker_mp) -
General (affects all shotguns) - ADS Spread is larger than Hip Spread. This means aiming down sights is useless and even a disadvantage.

Handguns
.44 Magnum (coltanaconda_mp) - No ADS sway.
Desert Eagle (deserteagle_mp) - Sight ADS is misaligned.
M9 (beretta_mp) - Non-working silencer. Akimbo causes the knife to block half of the vision when going prone with high fovs.
USP .45 (usp45_mp) - Always lunge knife melee with akimbo.

Launchers
AT4-HS (at4_mp) - Nothing.
Javelin (javelin_mp) - 200 melee damage (all other weapons have 135)- Relevant only in private matches with double health on (you can kill players with one melee attack instead of two).
RPG-7 2x (rpg_mp) - Nothing.
Stinger (stinger_mp) - Nothing.
Thumper 2x (m79_mp) - Nothing.

Miscellaneous (Extras)
Stun Grenade (concussion_grenade_mp) - Uses the smoke grenade viewmodel instead of the stun grenade one.
CP Markers: Holding a care package marker (doesn’t matter which) allows to instantly melee players without delay.
Akimbo: When performing a melee attack, there will be two arms inside each other doing the knife animation.
Heartbeat sensor: Many attachment combos cause the arm to clip through it.
Underbarrel Shotgun (shotgun_attach_mp) - 1750 range without damage drop off. Perfect to kill people across the map, especially on hardcore.

This is for people who don't believe in the vulnerabilities.
There is enough evidence when you google for cod exploits but we'll post a few links.

NEW: Thread on steam MW3 forums where people are complaining about being hacked.
Includes momo5502 giving good explanations about this serious topic and is arguing with someone who's abusing them to harm people: https://gtm.you1.cn/app/42690/discussions/0/5729109343958120690/?ctp=2#c4677521348355441484

"This repository documents several vulnerabilities in Call of Duty
and provides proof-of-concepts for each of them.": https://github.com/momo5502/cod-exploits

reddit thread about an user getting hacked:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CallOfDuty/comments/88izwd/mw3_severe_security_issue_on_mw3_pc_please_read/

Here's a video for live action of remote code execution:

Streamers getting RCEd live:

https://streamable.com/ldjtm

https://clips.twitch.tv/FrailProudHumanPartyTime

Now you know why we avoid playing on Steam MW2.
The scariest thing: You don't even need the game to execute some of the exploits!
We don't know how to use these exploits ourselves (except for the steam bypass) but it's not worth it.

But does it mean that you shouldn't touch MW2 anymore? Of course not. Feel free to play with broken weapons, killstreaks and perks as well as a lot of security issues that can get your data stolen.

If you really love this game and don't want to ditch it but also don't want to risk your private data to be stolen by a hacker, you can try an alternative version of Modern Warfare 2 that has all of those security issues fixed. Just visit this discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/sKeVmR3

This is the end of this guide. Have a nice day.