CLOD is the daikatana of flight sims in my opinion, long in development, overhyped and under delivered. It will have rabid fans for no other reason than who was involved with it's development, but the game itself is severely lacking and will probably never live up.
I had not been involved into the game development at all. I abandoned my flight sim hobby years ago actually and even didn't know they are going to release a new il2. So I had no expectations at all. Then I suddenly found an advertisement and bought both WoP and CloD. Since my first takeoff in 109 early at dawn I forgot about WoP completely. I don't like colors in WoP actually – too processed for my taste - and found CloD's just ok not mentioning all the great sunsets/dawns, lighting and cockpits in CloD.
I found CloD a game I always waited before and amazing even with some stutters occasionally.
So there was quite a shock when I read all that negativity here. I do not write in gaming forum usually but that much of a hate prompted me to say something opposite.
