I got sick of waiting for the US release and did the Just Flight thing yesterday, and I've actually been very pleasantly surprised with it, though this is coming from a position of expecting it to be godawful based upon everything I've read.

The performance is good enough considering how pretty it is. I just built a new computer that's fairly powerful(2600K@4.8GHz, 580GTX) and, bar some stuttering for the first 30 seconds of entering the cockpit, it runs well at maximum settings. It could be better (haven't measured, but I'd guess its quite near 30fps over London), but the graphics detail is pretty damn impressive. I do suspect I'll lower some details to get more performance. The sound is a bit of a let down though. I expected much better from that.

To be sure, the general fit and finish of it is a disappointment. I haven't had any particular problems, but the interface seems a little clunky and outdated. I also haven't tried anything to do with the campaign, and I understand that is a weak spot. If it doesn't fill out in terms of actual mission content, that would be a considerable whack against its long term viability. It certainly gives the impression that they spent the last six years tinkering with the simulation engine and suddenly had to bung it all together into what would pass for an actual game at the last minute.

So, anyways, I'm probably not the best to judge as I largely wandered away from flight sims a few years ago (hung it up after LOMAC and switched to racing sims mostly), and am only starting to come back now, so I probably don't really know what is expected of flight sims these days. Pressed to put a review score of my experience of what came out of the box yesterday, I'd probably stick a 75% on it. Maybe even an 80% if I was feeling generous. The things that it does well are very impressive to be sure, but there are a lot of things... things I would have assumed would actually be among the easier things after building such a complex bit of simulation software, that are a disappointment.

I just need a new HOTAS. The S part of my X45 (which I never really liked all that much) has gone walkabout after all these years, so I'm just using my trusty old Sidewinder Precision 2 and it doesn't really cut it.