Post Scriptum

after the past few updates the games optimization has improved TREMENDOUSLY. the gun play is crisp and whenever you shoot, its almost as if you can feel it in your chest. the only problem currently is the player count. i feel like a massive sale is needed to really boost up the numbers. im leaving a review in hopes that it will help the player count increase because it is by far the best WWII shooter on the market.

This game has come a long way since Offworld took over. If you are thinking about buying this, do it! We need more players!

Fantastic Game. Really Happy to see the game is being revived although Hell Let Loose still dominates in the OCE regions. Communities like BigD and Ci5 are doing their best to give the region a server to play in every day though.
I have nearly 3000 hours in Hell Let Loose, have played competition for the game and still don't think ill ever go back.
Squad 44 is an overall better game that doesn't rely on players building spawns to win the game. It helps, but its not the overall deciding factor. Theres no building nodes or any fiddly things like that which new players usually have problems with. Its just get in a squad, play, learn and have fun straight from the get go.
Its more immersive, better gun-play with huge arsenal of different weapons and different armies with the Pacific coming soon.
Its a no brainer, buy this game. Persist with the learning curve, it might be hard for the first 10 hours but then most people get it after that. And also, ask experienced players your questions on how to play the game. The community for Squad 44 is a really great group of people where the veterans are thankful for the new players coming to play, and usually are happy to teach new players.
Hope this gets read and some of you buy and enjoy the game.

A better version of Hell Let Loose with competent developers that have passion to grow the game. Nearly every aspect of S44 is better than Hell Let Loose.
Source: 1000+ hours in HLL with countless extra hours hoping T17 would actually develop the game.
100+ hours in Squad 44, looking forward to the growth from a passionate dev team.

HLL refugee. Had 500+ hours as SL and it became frustrating that no one used mics, the other SLs didn't communicate and you had guys running around not playing the objective. Came to Squad 44 and its a world of a difference. Nice community and loads of content right now. The gun play is good, different vehicles add a real nice touch. I hope the devs continue to update / optimize this game and see the community grow. Only issue I've had is some rubber banding but that can be fixed in due time. Visually, the game looks wonderful and the sounds are top notch too.

The game is moving in an amazing direction. Many people complain about the changes to logistical systems, and while there are some problems with mechanics, the core reason for why the developers are making these changes tells me that long term, this game is in good hands.
To be more specific, the game was in a horrible state before Mercury Arts and OffWorld took over, we had a year of no development at all, with game systems slowly being dilapidated. The problems of the game were (and are) at the very roots of the code.
Mercury Arts in their efforts to repair the game has made the correct decision in my opinion by choosing to attack these roots and entirely rewrite entire sections of code that are causing all sorts of issues for entirely unrelated parts of the game.
The specific example of this being their choice to rewrite the logistical system, since the old system was stopping them from fixing bugs all over the game. The reason why I believe this is the right choice, and a good sign for the long term stability and longevity of the game. I've seen many games in the past that were dead, and attempts were made to revive them by new devs, but those new devs never accepted the fact that the game died for a reason.
Next content isn't always the answer to reviving a game, often you have to address the fundamental problems, and that can be very intimidating to a developer team. Being asked to rewrite entire sections of code is hard, and likely to cause more bugs in the short term, but will make a better game in the long term.
To this end, the Mercury Arts has done an amazing job at being extremely transparent, more so than any other team I've seen. Explaining in detail what bugs exist, how they work, why solving them can be difficult, and why they make the changes they have. I highly recommend keeping an eye open to this content if that is the kind of thing you are interested in. They have done an interview, and have made several posts on Reddit to this end.
The unfortunate side of their efforts, is that the community has reacted poorly to their changes. There are many factors, but one of the important ones to remember is that the community was basically keep alive by a pool of about 400 people for 2 years. These players are veterans, and as such, very resistant to change. I consider myself one of them, I've played with the old mechanics for a very long time, so changes can be difficult.
Most recently they made several changes to the logi system as mentioned before, and I don't believe them to be all bad. Changing the system to be one closer to Squad was a positive change in my opinion, but there were negatives aswell. Most notably the removal of free fortifications. With all changes there will be upsides and downsides, but overall I think the reaction from the community has been very out of proportion. They have not killed the game with this update, they have changed it.
Many players are also concerned that the game will become too much like squad, however the developers in an interview addressed this, the truth is that they are Post Scriptum Players. Mercury Arts were so passionate about the game they created one of the biggest mods for it before any of this even happened. They stated they have no intention of making the game "WW2 squad", and further more have no intention of implementing things like the ICO for this game.
As a slight side note, if your concerned about player counts, I wouldn't worry about it much. Over the last 2 years the game has consistently had at least 2 full servers up at all times, roughly 80 players in each. I cant imagine this will change anytime in the future considering the games future is in a much better place than before. You will rarely struggle to find a game to play, only times you will are at very odd times where its the middle of night for both EU and US servers.
Overall I think the game is a good purchase, especially if on sale. Long-term I think the game will be successful.

I never leave reviews, but as someone who grew up playing the Red Orchestra franchise this feels like the spiritual successor and I love it. With the new developer's onboard, it's constantly improving and the game is looking beautiful. Squad 44 deserves to be up there with the very best fps titles. Would recommend for anyone looking for a WW2 experience, with a realism twist and the grit that RO2 had. A+