Davis believes that 2K should have allowed Spec Ops: The Line to stand as a single-player experience, in spite of market studies and sales expectations pointing to "the necessity" of a multiplayer component.
"The multiplayer mode of Spec Ops: The Line was never a focus of the development," Davis said, "but the publisher was determined to have it anyway. It was literally a check box that the financial predictions said we needed, and 2K was relentless in making sure that it happened even at the detriment of the overall project and the perception of the game."
Against Davis' wishes, development on the multiplayer component proceeded and was farmed out to Darkside Studios. The result, according to Davis, was a "low-quality Call of Duty clone in third-person," which "tossed out the creative pillars of the product." "It sheds a negative light on all of the meaningful things we did in the single-player experience,"