Another noticeable one is within the mission "The Gulag": The layout of the shower room, and the ensuing firefight within, is almost identical to the one in The Rock.

Well the layout of the shower room is almost exactly like the one in the Rock, except it's longer. And of course, enemies came from the other side of the area as well as from the elevated positions. I believe Rainbow Six did The Rock moment as well.

There's also a section in the mission "Just Like Old Times" that resembles the scene from Iron Man when Tony Stark escapes from captivity.

Not really that similiar. It's just a generic desert cave battle. Nothing like Iron Man. Now if you get to walk out of the cave with flame throwers, then it's be like Iron Man

I wasn't referring to the fighting inside the cave, but the part where Soap and Price escape the headquarters and pass through a valley with an ammo dump that looks identical to the exterior of the terrorist base in Iron Man. IIRC, one of the level designers even specifically said that part was inspired by the movie.

Just like old times? Isn't that an Commando reference?

It could be

I love this game but there still aren't many online maps, i feel i replay the same 3-4 all the time. Also, special ops mode kindof sucked, seeing half of them you can only play co-op. None of spec ops was all that great to get me going back. I also hate how you can't talk to friends during team deathmatch, in cod4 i could talk to all my friends. Now i need to be in free for all. Also, whats with hosts migration mid game a lot? COD 4 never did that. Just a few gripes, overall fun as hell to play. I just needed to throw out whats wrong since so many people consider it perfect.

That's because when ever the host left the game would just end. Now it finds a new one and the game continues.

I like the host migration since it happened a lot in the first game and I lost a lot of points. And I think you can talk to teams through Steam. The developers did say they are bringing out new maps soon, but the 360 are getting them first.

I just hate it that everything is match making and you can't just select what you want like in the first MW game.