Disclaimers first: I've only played through the first 3 missions and I am not making any claims for this as a tactical game.

Having said that:

It's wearing thin for me. There is a kind of bloat going on, which I noticed in the BIA games too, that involves cranking up the cinematics at the expense of gameplay. This means confronting the player with predominantly narrative elements, i.e. special effects, set-pieces, scripting and focusing quite a lot of the remaining participatory gameplay on cinematic tunnels, i.e. vehicle chases, climbing sheer ice rock-faces, etc, all designer-directed as opposed to player-directed forms of gameplay. As I say, I never expected this to be a tactical experience but I felt that with MW1 they attempted to ground the thing in a credibly military operational context. Guys who design shooters with strong narrative emphasis, like this series and the BIA games, which are tactical, love their cinematics, voice-acting and dialogue but it can topple over into self-indulgence.

Anyway, just my initial 10c. On my screaming new rig the game looks fantastic, with all sorts of particle and dynamic lighting effects and it is a very well engineered game indeed. I just think it's getting bloated and the more bloated it gets, the less challenging the gameplay.

I must say that I'm also a little disinterested with some of it. I haven't finished it yet but I was underwhelmed by the very first mission. Running and gunning through some streets and buildings and then some more streets and buildings just wasn't really fun for me and I did not feel like I was playing a new game. In some of the other missions too where you are clearing neighborhoods I found myself in a place of "this is pretty boring to me and not much fun. I'd like to get on with the other more unique missions please".

That being said, I'm enjoying the game but in the same way I enjoyed the original. As a first person shooter its a good one. With the added story telling, set pieces, and cinematic gameplay it makes for a very fun shooter that makes you feel like your in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. But I agree. It definitely has a specific genre that it resides in and its definitely not the serious tactical shooter genre. I did really enjoy the mountain mission and the sub mission.

And with regards to that, seeing how cool the scuba clad special opts were and how great the mission was, it makes me more and more want what I've wanted for a long time. A serious tactical shooter based around the Navy SEALS or similar units. A game that could have the tactics and planning of the original RB6 games, at least the graphical and texture detail of the MW2 characters, and the variety of levels found in the Hidden and Dangerous series. I'd love to see a good portion of the missions water based and another portion allotted to airborne infiltrations. I guess Ground Branch will be the game for this.

I'm with you, but I suspect there will be no more R6-type tactical shooters involving a planning interface until the kind of technology required to design them is available to hobbyist PC game designers as opposed to corporations which will only build games for consoles and we'll get good ports if we're lucky.

I resented being thrown into yet another huge, loud, Bruckheimer-esque firefight in the first mission of MW2 when I cannot control basic cover or movement. I didn't really mind this in MW1 because it was something of a novelty and they were not so determined to overwhelm the gaming experience with the cinematic experience. But it's getting tiresome.

I think we'll have to settle for ArmA 2 and Operation Flashpoint DR for the time being. I have to say, I much prefer SP in R6 Vegas 2 to MW1, as dumbed down from the original gameplay as the Vegas games are.

Sounds like what I'm hearing elsewhere too. They should've stuck with historical situations IMO. Maybe the next will be based on a little fact, I think it's supposed to be Korea or Vietnam.
I thought Ground Branch was essentially dead and buried?

The arcade games are going to get old at some point and game offerings will come back around. They really are repeating themselves, especially in MP game types. No telling when the change will come though.

Well, you can say goodbye to that idea as they would never do 'tactical planning' on a console (too boring apparently) so the port we would get wouldn't have it in either and I certainly hope you wouldn't expect a PC only version?....

Seems like the last shooter sim before OFDR with a functional tactical map for planning was Ghost Recon. There have been other nice realstistic games, but not with the planning map that I can remember.

No, no mass-produced game is ever going to have a planning screen again. I used to like planning my R6 missions so meticulously that the entire assault could be conducted by the AI, with me just hitting the go-codes...

It's possible that one day PC gaming will become a hobbyist platform again instead of just an afterthought for console developers. If the developers/publishers of high-end flight sims like Falcon Allied Force could turn that into a viable business model, perhaps truly tactical shooters could take advantage of the same niche.