It depends, your kids may get influenced later on. My son plays those games and he is fourteen and I let him play when he was 13. I would wait a little longer for mature rated games. You should let him play teen rated games if you think he won't be influenced that much.
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Nope, my opinion is that 9 and younger is too, too young for games like that.

First of all, it's those games have gotten so realistic. Scary realistic. Witnessing a real violent death realistic. And I definitely don't think my kid would be ready for that for at LEAST a few years after that.

Once the kiddo gets to be 12 or 13, then you can have more mature talks with them about the difference between games and reality. They can process it better.

If you like, think of it in terms of movies - I liken games like this to the following movies:
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Scarface
Goodfellas
Saving Private Ryan
Braveheart
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Would you let a 9 or 10 year-old watch these? Personally, I wouldn't. Not even a mature 9 or 10 year-old. Maybe at a mature 12 or 13. Maybe. Even then I would want to keep their exposure minimal.

Good luck!
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No. I would think that kids should play it at age 14 to 17.
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Honestly, I do not think kids that age should be playing those games. I work with kids and it has been my experience that most kids, at that age, still need to study more after school and be active.

When I say be active I mean that they should go outside and play. If they live in a big city, parents should take them to the park or play ball with them. When I say that kids that age need to study more is because many kids do not study enough at home. They need to spend more time reading a book and doing their homework and less time playing shooting games that make them violent.
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the ESRB was made so situations like this are actually held responsibly. Kids can play the game but if they are influenced in a negative fashion, it's the parents responsibility considering that games like Call of Duty are rated MA(for Mature, mainly for the violence and what not so of course, you would be ID'd to get it in stores that sell the copies. If i recall, California passed a law to where you would have to be at least 17 to even purchase a game (it might have changed though, it's been a few years.) It was made so that regardless of what the kids played, if they were influenced negatively by it, guess who was to blame....the parents.

So be careful what you have your kid(s) play and please take the ESRB seriously. If you don't know about the games rating, you can even look up reviews and synopses about the game and see what other people think of it. Even stores like GameStop have knowledge about their inventory and they can tell you if it's decent for your kids to play or not.
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