Combat Mission: Shock Force 2

Its ABSURDLY over-priced. The second another group takes this very straight-forward concept & runs with it, I'm abandoning CM; they're arrogant & greedy... I'm not fans of the people there, but I get the strong sense they could care less. They kind of have some us by the "Short hairs", extortion-wise, as currently NO ONE makes games like this (Close Combat is a distant 20-year second), PROS - 75% of the game works as advertised. Its got good replay-ability & adequate, not great AI. Combat is highly detailed process, lots of constant evaluation of probabilities happening. There are accurate performance of personnel & weapon capabilities. The maps are wonderfully detailed with small rolling knolls in places. LOS is highly modeled & statistically represented in shot likeliness. CONS - The blatant "Screw you buyer" price tag... The pay-more packs are a waste of time, dont bother. False advertising: 25-30% of the reported "behavior" concepts are not actually modeled in the game (ex: a "pinned" enemy AT team will both shoot at & accurately kill your tank 500m away while they are pinned & "panicked".
Worst Con = the user interface is like trying to start an old car. Its the user interface you'd expect from a game made in 1995, not 2024. I've played hundreds of hours & am constantly pressing the wrong button or struggling to issue a command STILL... A small, small amount of extra programming effort could resolve this 100%, they're well aware of it, they just don't care - we keep buying it - why work harder? Its an extremely fun $35 game that's over-priced by nearly a factor of 2 at $60, and has some false claims about what it does. If you don't care about getting ripped off to have some fun, try it out.

Modern combat circa 2008 or so that largely features the Stryker IFV in a fictional fight with Syria. It is about mechanized infantry and modern weapon systems. Spotting and using distance weapons (artillery, air strikes) is very important, so a big part of each fight is locating and damaging targets from afar.
It is a somewhat complicated game which you can learn by reading the manual and watching some Youtube vids. What isn't really spoken is that the game has a pace. You need to soften targets and otherwise take your time when you have an advantage. Rushing will almost always result in calamity.
The learning curve for me was 8 hours or so. I am a wargamer, tech savy, and have an infantry background, so this game is a good match for me. The interface is clunky, but it works fine. The graphics are serviceable and utilitarian - not great, but you know what is going on without too much of an issue.
Value for play time? Well, I am in the first campaign and just finished the third mission. There are 22 scenarios in the campaign, so I think it will take me at least 60 and probably more like 85 hours to complete it.

A little aged in graphics but I still find I come back to this game more than other realistic RTS. I enjoy the detail of the weapons and the realistic feel of the combat. Once you get an idea on proper tactics the game is an absolute joy. Highly recommend when on sale.

This is a really fun turn-based strategy game without a current parallel. There's a lot of content to be played with mods, many of the campaigns are really fun and intense. It's just not worth the $60 as the game looks and feels super dated. Get it on G2A or on sale and you'll have a lot of fun.

Gameplay is awesome, with literally nothing analogous around. UI is outdated, but manageable. Performance is unexpectedly subpar, but is somewhat fixed by community guides.

first thing I would like to say is that the issues with AMD hardware for this game seem largely resolved and despite a few small issues it runs smooth.
I am enjoying this game so far, there is a lot of gameplay that is massively different from any RTS I have played before, perhaps the closest thing to this would be the Graviteam Tactics games or Tank Warfare: Tunisia. you will need to learn real life tactics and learn how the movement, spotting and engagement systems work. overall, I am having fun with it.

I've been playing some form of Shock Force since 2008 and it is one of the best modern combat simulations and professional development tools out there. I'm very pleased to have it on Steam after all these years, and runs great on the deck with a little control tweaking.