I am playing BF3, just bought it as well. Aside from the lack of maps, Origin + the browser being used for a menu, it is a rather nice game. It was never meant to be realistic, I am not sure where you read that. I liked BFBC2 because it was easy to get into when I do not have time to play a more involving game. BF3 fills this role nicely. CoD is Quake in a somewhat real world setting, so I am not sure what you were expecting?

Red Orchestra 2 is better, but it is not up to par with Red Orchestra 1 (realistic BF type game).

Sadly, if you want a realistic shooter that is somewhat recent, Red Orchestra 2 with realism mods (to be released) and ArmA 2 are your only options, with ArmA 3 around the corner. ArmA does a lot of things right, but so much wrong at the same time. I wish there was another option to, but there isn't.

Ground Branch doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and that was the last chance for any Raven Shield/Ghost Recon type game...

Also, since you didn't research these two games, I will tell you now: Don't buy Rainbow 6: Patriots or Ghost Recon: Future Soldier! They are CoD/BF type games and not tactical shooters.

Arma2/OA is far from realistic. Anyone that says so must never have actually played it. In my view, Arma2/OA feels more like a tech demo than a game. Don't get me started on the clunky interface/UI.

But the good thing is that the Darkest Hour team finally decided to go indie. They said they aren't going to go the RO2/TWI route, but stay true their roots and produce what their fans love: fun ass realism.

Agreed on MW3 and BF3 being more updates to the older versions than anything.

I bought COD4 and enjoyed the on-rails single player FPS live action movie due to some of the cool scenes you get to take part in (AC130 and sniper mission) but when I tried online it was obviously not my type of MP game, all run and gun and 'nade spamming. So I have avoided all the COD games since including MW3 especially since they focus only on the MP and haven't even bothered to make the singleplayer have the wow factor that COD4 had.

For BF3 I bought it and it is the same fun MP game that BF1942 and BC2 was, in this series the realism loses out to game balance and I find it a pretty good game pretty much like BF1942, BF Vietnam, BC2 but with amazing sound and graphics since I get to run it on Ultra. Sure some things need tweaking (MANPADs need buff and IR scopes need nerfing) but overall a very fun more modern version of what made all the previous games in the series fun.

Arma2 is fun too but in a very different way, more realistic but it also takes much longer time to get organized and travel to the AO, so definitely not a pickup and play game like BF3 for me.

RO2 is also fun but it was released so buggy that I am waiting for significant patches to come revisit it.

I think overall all of the above mentioned games were well previewed and in the BF3 case there was even an open beta, so I think most people that are surprised with how they play must not have read up on them ahead of buying, they all seem to be trying to dumb things down a bit to appeal to the billions of COD fans, but usually they still try to stick with the gameplay that made the series fun.

BF3?
Crashes every night.I get 3 different types of crash of varying severity.It's so annoying.
I have trouble actually playing the game.Everyone uses me for target practice,or so it seems.My flying stinks.My tactics stink.
I started with a KDR of 1.0,now it's 0.6 and dropping.

However at the moment I'm not playing anything else.I love this game despite the flaws.
I think the whole browser interface is great.I'm not sure why people hate it.

MW3?
Never played any of them and never will.

I wouldn't even call BF3 an upgrade, it's Battlefield for Dummies when you compare it to BF2, just another game in the "that's too difficult or has too steep of a learning curve, delete it!" line of modern shooters.


Buying either of them and expecting anything other than arcade shooters with modern gun skins is also pretty foolish, it's not like they are trying to hide what they are.

ARMA II is gonna be your best bet for tactical games, next would be H&D II

BF3 is so bad i am done with the entire series. Mindless crap.

RO2 Full SDK will be released later this week or early next week (it was delayed from last friday because of some nagging small issues). Once it is out, it won't take long for the modding community to make an RO2 mod or two to your liking. Because of ArmA and RO2's mod-friendly architectures believe they will long outlive the CoD/MW games. In addition to the large number of gameplay tweaks that modders will be making for RO2, there are also a number of total conversions planned...See here: http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=54779 These include an official expansion covering the Pacific theatre, a WWI mod for 1916 and a Vietnam mod. These are all likely months away since the full SDK is not out yet but the horizon is bright. In the near-term, TWI devs have confirmed that they are beta-testing at least 2 new official maps for the first content patch.

Cheers,

Fafnir_6

P.S. Thanks for the tip on Hidden & Dangerous II...I may just pick that one up (I had never heard of it before).

H&DII is one of the best games ever made.

I'll second that