dated graphics, uneven realism, but entertaining
AI is improving. Graphics are dated (holy 1993, Batman) but quite usable.
Designers have lavished vast effort on stuff like desert and snow camo versions of many vehicles, yet the system usually does not automatically use them when scenarios take place in desert areas or on desert maps. You can go into the MOBHACK tool and set these--but by the time you've done that, Shrapnel Games has come out with a new version of the game, time to start over, grumble grumble. Last time I looked I was amused to see not one but multiple desert camo versions of the Soviet T64 tank--which was only deployed in East Germany. I suppose that's a little historical joke from the artists.
Anyway, it's fun to tinker with as much for the historical and modern stuff as for the what-ifs you can play with. Like, what if the US, or other Western powers, had upgraded the 1950s-era jeep-with-recoilless-rifle with thermal sights and laser rangefinders and modern advanced HEAT rounds into the present day, instead of replacing them with guided missiles? What if the replacement for the jeep-with-106mm recoilless rifle had been a HMMWV with a 120mm recoilless rifle? What if the Germans had kept their old PzJgK/90mm WWII-style tank destroyers in service into the 80s and 90s, but upgunned them to 105mm or 120mm and given them modern fire control systems? What if the M551 "Sheridan" had been replaced in the 80s with another light tank, specs of which you can enter yourself? Or what if the Sheridan were still in service in the 21st Century, with appropriate upgrades, perhaps used in Afghanistan or Iraq?
Others may complain, and it's not wholly invalid, that air power and artillery are seriously nerfed here and infantry has been highly buffed in the name of play balance. But then the game is "Steel Panthers," not "Steel Rain from Above that Instantly Wipes Out All Effective Resistance and Makes the Enemy's Stuff All Retarded."