The 10s of millions of people who play these games disagree.
Then those 10 million people have zero idea of what quality is.
I've discussed this with a ton of people, both friends, as well as random people on the internet. Not a single person has ever been able to give a single valid arguement as to why CoD is a good game.
CoD's graphics are horribly out dated, which wouldn't matter if the game delivered a compelling story and characters. Problem is that it doesn't. The characters all have the depth of rain puddle, with nothing distinctive about any of them. The main character is basically whatever gun you see on screen, as the player character never utters a word, or even gives a hint on where he stands on the current situation. There's just no character development to speak of in any of the games, it's friggin embarresing.
It doesn't get any better when you look at the story arch, which is filled to the top with plot holes, and the occasional plot convient tool/character. How it's even possible to create such pathetic crap is beyond me. The story makes no sense, and fails to make any kind of emotional impact, despite the fact that millions of people are dying.
So is the gameplay anything special? Hell no. The same recycled crap, with the worst AI arround, and no innovative features to speak of. The sound design is atrocious, making no use of Surround Sound, and failing to produce a single memorable sountrack. I don't get why the great Hans Zimmer has any involvement with the game, though it should be noted that he's only responsible for 2-3 scores for the MW games(not including MW1).
Online is just a mess, with half the community consisting of kids in their early teens, and horrible balancing.
So is BF3 any better? I used to love the BF franchise because of the teamwork required to suceed. However, BF3 completely removes any aspect of teamwork. Remember the great commander and squad system of BF2?
You will never see a team made up with people who don't know each other, act as a team in the new BF games. And that's only partially the games fault. The options for communicating with your team is just horrible, and it's impossible to coordinate the entire team. So what it comes down to is everyone running around by them selves, just like CoD.
Other simple things to encourage teamwork is to make classes less jack of all trades, and to require more than one person to capture falgs and the like. Actually have objectives that require more than 1 person to complete.
And don't even get me started on the atrocious new server system on the PC. Who the hell wants to use an internet browser to select servers? What was wrong with the way BF2142, and all the BF games before that, was setup? Gameplay wise, it has moved closer to the CoD style, with ridicules amounts of EXP awarded for just about everything.
Sound design is something Dice has always done well. Problem is that both Bad Company 2 and BF3 suffered from audio lag, and occasionally, the sound for reloading wouldn't play at all. Then there's the rubbish hit ditection, and poor ideas, such as flashlights that blind everyone. Not to mention seeing the flash from sniper scopes, despite being under ground!
These are just a fraction of complaints about the two most overrated franchises on earth. I won't even get into how CoD has practically ruined the gaming industry, with a lot of developers trying to copy/paste their game formula. And the increase in DLC cost, brought on by Activision.