I'm glad I read your review, Chuck. Disappointing to hear something with a "Janes" stamp on it can be so bad.

Gotta agree totally,

Grew up on Jane's Longbow and LB2,USAF,F-18,F-15,USNF97.This crap doesn't even come close.It was a sin to even use the title "Jane's".Only serious sims are attributed to this name.This sequel is a complete joke.Although the first Advanced Tactical Fighters and USNF were not total simulations in the sense.They were much better then this junk.

So many games are coming out these days that try to capitalize on some classic gem by using the name but they can't even obtain a fraction of the glory.They are better off leaving the names of those titles alone.They are not worthy and they can't fool us.

It seems like the era of the PC-based air combat simulator is pretty much over (still)

Its really too bad, with native Windows support for multiple monitors and so on, I was hoping we would see some flight sims taking advantage of it. (Asides the MS Flight Sim, X Plane and Aces High II....only ones that come to mind. Perhaps Falcon does?)

I really miss the days of games like US Navy Fighters and the sort, where you could have multiplayer fun with many different aircraft types.

It's hardly over.

Lol, have you checked out DCS A10? Or Black Shark? Heck, the Lock On Flaming Cliffs do a pretty decent job. Then there's Rise of Flight, IL-series, etc... the oldies such as EECH, Jane's F/A-18, and Falcon 4 BMS are still around as well.

You've named Lock-On/Black Shark/DCS....largely all from the same producer. Rise of Flight...then games that have been out of 5 years or way more. Like I said, where is the new stuff? By all means, point it out to me.

While there can be little doubt that the simulation market has by and large stagnated since the late 1990s while the rest of the computer game market grew by several hundred percent, thus marginalizing the genre, it seems to be equally true that the market is still large enough to allow for two larger and a number of smaller teams.
It's not all doom and gloom.
But an inevitable consequence is that there are fewer direct competitors, that there are fewer releases. Also, keep in mind that generally game engines have matured over the past decade to the point where they now live much longer - this is a technology-induced factor to slow down the overall, directly observable pace of development. But as long as there is some money to be made on the PC platform, flight simulations are not going to die out.

I'm guessing you didn't follow the link in my post. There's an upgrade coming to bring Lock On to DCS standards, which will be amazing. There's a new map coming out for the whole DCS series. A new fast mover sim also part of the DCS series as well as a WWII vintage sim game. Sure it's all from ED/TFC but who cares? They make by far the best sims on the market today, the rest are all arcade-ish. A2A makes some phenomenal stuff too, but of course that's not really combat sim as much as it's a flight sim.

You don't need ten producers when one is doing the best work. But you seem too negative about the whole thing anyway, so whatever. DCS is what's new but you don't seem impressed, so not sure what to tell you.

There's been a couple more, so it's not that bad:

- Take On Helicopters is a new flightsim from the makers of ARMA (has combat helos in it, kinda). http://takeonthegame.com/

- IL2 Cliffs of Dover was a new release back in April, even if it wasn't as good as it's long gestation period would suggest. http://store.steampowered.com/app/63950

- Microsoft is re-writing and updating FSX to their new 'Microsoft Flight' franchise. http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/

- X-Plane 10 is quite a big update. http://www.x-plane.com/desktop/

- Falcon BMS is almost like a completely new game. http://www.simhq.com/_air14/air_507a.html

- Gaijin should release next year their air combat MMO World of Planes. http://www.worldofplanesgame.com/en/game/

PS I know you said 'combat flight sim' but I widened the search a bit