Throughout gaming's history, there have been attempts to make death seem appropriately final. Some games limit the number of deaths you are allowed, making death truly consequential but nonetheless more trivial than actual human death. Other games are even more lenient, giving the player unlimited death but imposing penalties for the failure, such as losing money or having a certain amount of in-game progress lost.Nonetheless, these penalties don't come close to addressing a problem that becomes more prominent as games become more realistic and serious. Perhaps no genre draws more attention to this dilemma as the military shooter. In games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, death is a non-issue for the player. It comes suddenly, but is usually the result of a lack of strategic and skillful maneuvering. In other words, it makes perfect sense. The player gets a maximum of five seconds to consider an alternate way around the problem, and tries again.
via gamasutra.com