I would argue that Call of Duty is exactly the kind of game I am talking about. As someone who has beat both CoD2, Modern Warfare 1 and 2 on Veteran difficulty,

I would argue that Call of Duty is exactly the kind of game I am talking about. As someone who has beat both CoD2, Modern Warfare 1 and 2 on Veteran difficulty, I can say for sure that most of the difficulty is due to the exact reasons I mentioned. More enemies with more health and better accuracy. Beating the game on Veteran was more about figuring out hacks to the game mechanics (knowing when to rush through enemy fire to reach the point that stops enemy respawns) than due to any true challenge with the combat. One of the few examples of where good challenge was added was the point in the first Modern Warfare where you have to make a long distance sniper shot. On the harder difficulty settings, the wind and other factors were more pronounced, making the shot much more difficult, but in an interesting and challenging way instead of a more frustrating way. Unfortunately the rest of the game was filled with enemies with x-ray vision and what seemed like heat-seeking grenades.