You get it all in this game, white phosphorous, lynchings, gunning down protestors, etc. The only positive of this game is that you get to gun down American troops in a video game with no pretense of doing this in real life(In Minecraft).
The worst part about this game is that war crimes are framed as inevitable. I literally can't progress in the game without gunning down civilians or shooting white phosphorous at the troops™
Like, this game would be good if there was once an anti-war message sprinkled in there. The fact that this producer can spread war crime porn is disgusting.
This game was marketed as the tough choices horror show of games, and boy did it fuck that up.
As an addendum: the campaign is kind of fun to play
It's entirely correct and the fact that people still have this take 9 years down the line only serves to prove Yager even more right.
Spec Ops definitely has anti-war themes because obviously, but the first and foremost question is "Why do you entertain yourself with the war crimes simulator?". It's not so much about "don't do the war crimes" because fucking duh, it's about "don't entertain yourself playing the war crimes"
On all accounts, I'm guilty as charged on that one but the entire point is "Literally do anything else", the game basically outright tells you this via the later loading screen messages.