@xianc78 @beardalaxy @lina On one hand, it definitely did help drum up PR. On the other hand, it was a series known for shocking material at the time and CoD was already on top at that time.

CoD4 was notorious for shocking content too (the AC-130 mission, the opening where you play a POV as someone being publicly executed, the nuke mission), but MW2's No Russian mission was definitely shocking because of the context. One of the developers back then aside from hoping it made more developers take risks also said that it was based on the fact such a thing could happen.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110207091150/http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/213011/modern-warfare-2-writer-the-airport-level-was-a-risk-we-had-to-take/

I found interviews of the developer of the mission too and he basically said "yeah it was to set up the villain, and give you the illusion of player agency". Of course it's probably a lot harder to do that nowadays.