So sorry to resurrect this thread, but I looked for one after I finished the game, and then found this comment. You make good points, but I think you missed the point of the game entirely. WARNING: If you haven't finished the game yet, you may want to refrain from reading this. It contains spoilers to the very end of the game!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
The point of the game wasn't to force you into a "War is hell/ press A to murder civilians/See? War is hell we told you so" sort of mentality. While it is accurate to say that the game did force you into seeing that war is hell, that is actually the point. In many shooters today like Call of Duty, we often have a large feeling of control because we feel like a super soldier. We don't feel like war is hell because we have so much control and power that we don't see hell, and see war as more of a playground. In this game, you as a character have no control. There is no "good choice/bad choice" morality, it is simply bad choices, and there is nothing you can do about that. In the end, you can't save those civilians from the white phosphorous, but you can certainly try. No matter what you do, you will have to kill these civilians. It isn't fair by design, and you realize that war isn't fair much like in real life.
Speaking of not fair, the game takes your situation and continually makes it worse. You are originally set out to find survivors and Konrad, then evacuate Dubai. Then it becomes a mission of hunting down Konrad. Then it becomes a mission of survival. Then it becomes hopeless. You seem to frequently start a level on the high ground, then descend the level vertically (a level design that portrays the idea of physical and mental sprial). Your characters look more beat up with every mission. The survival aspect is amplified further by the ammo mechanic, and the fact that you always seem to be low on ammo. You aren't some fully equipped super soldier, you are equipped with enough to keep yourself alive.
So why do you keep fighting? That is a question that the player is taxed with towards the end of the game. You kept fighting, you kept on trekking, you kept playing the game, yet you knew it was hopeless. There was no way you could save yourself or the civilians, you became a mess with PTSD the size of Manhattan. You killed your entire squad, you became completely outnumbered, your mission was a failure. So why did you even bother? Why did you play this game knowing the conclusion was going to be in vain? Why do we, as players, want to play this? All these questions commentate on you as a person, because it makes you ask yourself the big question, why do we play these games? Walker comes to Dubai, wanting to feel epic, heroic and powerful. He wants to save the day. Just like us when we sit down to play these games.
Captain Walker is messed up by the end of the game. He suffers from PTSD, has hallucinations, gets 47 innocent people killed including his entire squad and has a dissociative disorder to rationalize the actions he performs throughout the game. The ending shows Konrad, and at first he appears to be the one behind all this mess. He seems like an evil bastard, and sounds like your typical bad guy. Then you find his dead corpse on the chair. Konrad then appears as a figment of your mind, explaining the events that happened. Walker had the choice to leave Dubai, but he didn't. He wanted to be a hero. Then you see Konrad pointing a gun at you and counting to five. There are two copies of you and Konrad. It is a mirror, but Konrad is in the reflection. You are Konrad, the very thing you set out to destroy. You wanted to destroy evil, but you became it, you did these horrible things. You then tried to rationalize it by trying to be a hero and putting the blame on another, but Walker can't escape his own consequences. So why is this all significant?
You are Captain Walker.
You as the player did not have to continue on playing the game, but you did. Despite the horrible things you did, the horrible things that happened as a result and the horrible things that continued to happen, you strode on because you wanted to win the game. You wanted to save the day, to be the hero. You rationalize this goal by trying to be the hero, yet you can't escape your consequences. You had no control of the situation, you couldn't make it better, but you tried anyway. This is the true comment on you as a person. You are killing for your own entertainment, you want to be powerful and you want to be the hero, despite the fact that the game gives you none of these things. You don't feel powerful, and you are no hero. So the only rational way of wanting to play this game is because you want to kill people. You can't make good choices in this game, you only make bad ones, yet your mind is still set on playing this game to finish it. To end the story and be the hero, yet you know this goal is seemingly impossible.
In conclusion, you as a person will play shooters like Call of Duty because you want to intentionally remove yourself from reality and place yourself in an unmoral and unrealistic place because you want to be in control and to be a hero. There are many more underlying themes and layers to the game, but with this information I will leave you with this:
Many players commented on the fact that the game itself was boring but the story made up for it. If you knew the story was bleak, you were continually making bad choices and continually killing people, and you knew that in the end you did these horrible things and had no control to stop, then why did you play this game? Why did you continue?
It seems the only logical explanation is because you as a person wanted to kill.