Well, generalities are unhelpful. Saying "the lag is real" without unpacking the meaning intelligently is not quite insightful.
You know, the brat-face rudeness, ill-breeding, disproportionate negativism, extreme ingratitude and sardonic bad faith of general COD "fan base" (naturally with exceptions) is ALSO real, "dude"...
I am a lone wolf. Nothing to lose, nothing to win, by "spinning" anything.
I personally tested the "lag controversy" -- there is no clear-cut answer here -- preconditions of variable nature have to exist in certain proportions for even the appearance of lag to seem real...
In other words, lag exists in potentiality and not necessarily, thus negating the inevitability or in-built nature of the problem, absolving the development staff of all issues scientifically... I do not lie or speak mendaciously, period.
The lag is limited to very constrained and highly opposite of terminally hopelessly unalterable conditions peculiar to the technology of the player, the cognitive competency and familiarity with modern technology of the user (I phrased this as gently as possible,) and, with even mediocre technical expertise and adequate hardware maintenance, no problems should exist of any significance. No one paid me to state this and the majority of company representatives and consumers alike dislike me intensely, truthfully.
As to the other question, I personally think the positives overpower and overrule the negatives in BO 2, at least exponentially. Probably infinitely.
I personally express my gratitude for these updates keeping fans involved generously; I honor the sense of purposefulness and mindful attention to problems reported and fixed as much as humanly possible, and the constancy and dedication to self-enhancement contra mundum... Practically heroic at this point.
If the technical repairmen and engineers of your game-play here worked some sort of miracle, I hypothesize on grounds of "disillusionment of experiential anecdotal data" this community either would 1) act predictably as ungrateful teenagers and men-children afflicted with a mental health syndrome similar to intermittent explosive disorder, or 2) not be cognitively attentive enough to even notice their efforts to give you "fun"...
Their product made a quality company money, no crime in my mind, so while all of you imagine them as billionaires with gold-plated toilet seats, the reality is: billions psychologically do NOTHING in terms of human happiness. I know from friends of wealth in terms of soft substantiation, and more heavily, peer-reviewed psychiatric studies, which correctly have recorded suicide is committed by the so-called "rich" at the same ratio with the same numbers, once mathematically evened out fairly, as "middle class" and "poor"...
And the "repairmen" technicians you casually demean, berate, and sardonically belittle on an everyday basis, while not threatening to murder CEO level individuals, are not the primary corporate stakeholders, folks, wondrously living off your, um, "existential angst" (LOL) as they swim in a pool of gold coins -- these "repairmen" are one of the most crucial elements in making the company functional; so keeping that in mind, for these people to have to suffer your ignorant backlash of irrationality endlessly, I do declare, grants them next to heroic, if not heroic, status... Heck, heroism granted.
And the moneyed corporate leaders who receive your death-threats the FBI hopefully investigates and every individual involved is suitably punished maximally, even the set of CEO leaders are fellow humans; and what all of you cannot envision mentally, is the sense of self-effectiveness or Maslovian "self-efficacy" is dominant over all the other needs of the human ego -- scientific psychology has established this.. We exist in a private enterprise economy in which this community, bereft of coercion, purchased the product; and moral transgressions being absent, nothing is to be said here furthermore...
Apparently, pleasing the COD community is self-defeating. That is what you are all teaching them, folks. Karma exists in this situation where you have a company bending backwards to improve and serve its base honorably, and meanwhile, all at the same time, the "consumers" do everything to negate the supererogatory activity of the brains working and grinding all for you, out of magnanimity largely at this point in the game's most commercially-relevant timeline... There is no "evil capitalist" incentive at this point for them, people, if private enterprise was your hangup -- and still, you bite at the hand generously feeding you; such self-handicapping weirdness is symbolically and karmically a malfunction, gently... If communal attitude continues as it is, and, in perception of this community, there is a gradual lessening in qualitative service (heroic dedication of the staff can dry up if all of you manifest only stasis), you only have yourselves to blame collectively.
Thanks again to the hard-working, under-appreciated, unjustly-denigrated and genuinely CREATIVE ("'What is creative'"? the Last Man asketh") people behind Call of Duty and its current installment upgraded once again, whose "fan-base" (statistically) of ingrates and egocentric...people...currently merit none of the creative stratum's supererogatory (yes, esoteric allusion on purpose to the cognizant), altruistic efforts and determined will to ever-improve...