I feel pretty opposite. CloD is a game that revived my interest in the whole flight sim genre which already started to fall from my attention due to a lack of anything really spectacular.
What differs CloD is that it looks so real and "next gen" and so much visually superior to everything else, including RoF, WoP, FsX with addons which also look great but not that great as CloD.
Paired with a fantastic flight and damage model altogether it create so incredible immersion feeling so I can't stop just flying and could care less about campaigns and other stuff.
I don't play CoD anymore and wont until it gets fixed and a proper campaign probably. But like you it revitalised my interest in flight sims and after CoD I was encouraged to buy the fantastic Rise of Flight and also start playing Flightsim X again after a long while away from it. So its done some good for me. As for CoD itself, though, its pretty lame.
Cant agree CoD looks better than RoF or FSX, I have been blown away by views from default FSX flying around Geneva lately and I just love ROF especially since the new mist effects have been added. The feeling of flight is far better in both of these sims as well. The only thing CoD does well is the damage modelling and that doesnt make a great game. But personally I hate the graphics as unless you have a mega computer all the cities etc look like noddy towns and the trees/fields etc look nothing like England or anything resembling west Europe even, unlike RoF.
And as far as immersion goes there is very little in CoD other than in mission, and that is ruined all the time by a complete lack of objects or anything going on in the quick missions or campaign missions other than around your immediate flight route. And when you leave a mission you are back in an obviously basic computer GUI with nothing that keeps the immersion going, whats left of it. I mean yes MS flight sim has the same but it doesn't seem to matter too much as its modern flight sim not representing any type of historical period, and Rof reeks of historical flavour all the time even when you are in multiplayer.
There's just no comparison between CoF and the other two sims unfortunately.
