I just went into the Play Store and my camera received an update. I haven't really seen the differences that they are referring to though...
Maybe I'm crazy....I think the camera is fine.
That depends on your own perception of what is "fine", as well as what you're using for comparison purposes. I have a few spare smartphones at home (a few iPhones and even a Nokia Lumia 920, I also had Xperia Z but gave it away) and a calibrated monitor on my PC. I also own a most recent model of MacBook Pro and previous-gen iPad (their displays are not calibrated but they are very good "by default"). The Moto X's camera consistently produces pretty poor photos (on average worse than other smartphones that I have) - poor white balance, poor exposure, lots of "noise" in low lighting, even after all of the latest updates. And it's not only my particular device - I've seen samples by other Moto X owners, including in these forums, they look similarly bad on all my displays on these devices. The camera quality is the weakest point of this model (including the controls in stock camera app), totally negating the awesome "flip-twice-to-turn-on" feature. Hopefully Motorola will do more improvements to it or change it completely in next model...Maybe I'm crazy....I think the camera is fine.
1) does the camera have a macro mode? my atrix 4g has that and use it all the time for food porn and other stuff. works great.
No it does not.
2) can you take back-to-back pictures as fast as iphone? (the camera on my atrix is super sluggish)
You can use 'burst mode' just hold the screen and it will snap snap snap pretty quickly.
3) is the general consensus that the camera shortcomings are software related? is the hardware comparable to most phones?
Not sure on the hardware, though some software updates did help it some.