I know exactly how everyone feels in this thread. I can give the perspective from a Battlefield point of view. I purchased he latest in the BF franchise, BF2142. I was actually waiting till Quake Wars came out because I know the type of "quality" EA has. The only reason I bought BF2142 was to play with my friends. Believe it or not, since so many people buy the EA games, it is more than likely in order to play games with friends, you will most likely be purchasing an EA game. I had the same chance with BF2 to buy it and play with friends but I opted not to. It just wasn't my cup of tea and I hated how darn arcadey and egregious the guns and tactics were in that game. My idea of a good WW2 shooter is Red Orchestra and someone was trying to get me to play BF2.
Another issue you will see implemented in a lot of the EA games is the "fairness doctrine". In order to properly achieve game balance you must make everything fair. That means in BF2142 you can't cook grenades, instead you must have a 5 second timer so people have a chance to run away. All the weapon unlocks you get as upgrades can't be better. They have to be different with some very slight improvements, or be so terrible no one in their right mind would use it. Or, the unlock can only be good for very specific scenarios and in every other one it is terrible. Things like this are riddled throughout the whole game. Bases are built so the attackers and defenders have equal opportunity to capture or defend. Anytime anyone gets an upperhand or a certain kit isn't as good as the others, they release a patch to "fix" the problem. Balancing is completely subject to what others think is fair and not what is intellectually sound.
Then are the bugs. There are reports I hear from Beta testers of this game stating they reported exploits and bugs in the Public Beta test and Private Beta test that were never fixed in the final game copy. If you haven't played BF2142 it feels very much like a Beta test. The game concept is great, and it is a good preview of what is to come. It still needs considerable polish and working to be a final game. Even if the game was completely bugless and exploitless, it still isn't enough for this game. This game feels just like BF1942 that I played years ago.
The game has poor execution on the future setting. The game is more like modern combat misconstrued with a 2142 setting. It feels like BF:2 in so many ways and then here and there, almost as a whim, they decided to include futuristic gameplay. This feels more like a mod to BF:2 then its own game. Actually no I take that back, even a futuristic mod for BF:2 would, I don't know, be a bit more futuristic.
Things like this just show the poor execution of DICE in developing this game. So, lets take a look at what EA might have done to make this possible. Maybe, they twisted DICE's arm to release the game early and implement the "fairness doctrine".
Remember though, EA isn't the only one that doesn't things like this. Just look at ATARI and NWN2 that was just released. I attribute this games problems due in part to the development process. Obsidian switched their main lead in the middle of game development and had to scrap parts of the game they had been developing for months(horses in particular). This only makes me think there were a lot of hiccups during development that affected the overall quality of the game. So, it seems EA isn't the only one that can play this game. Though, I have a lot more confidence Obsidian will actually fix their problems. Their already released patches are going in a great directions.
