This is the game that got me hooked on FPSs, and, by extension, all the other games that followed through the years. When I first downloaded the Recon beta client, CS and a number of other well known titles were already well established and had the lion's share of gamer attentions world-wide. The comparisons then (which were bound to occur) were as inappropriate & misleading then as any attempted comparisons now.

Like apples and oranges, just different kinds of fruit even if they are both fruit. For all the updates and versions that have come out since that intitial download, America's Army remains true to it's nature and gameplay, while greatly expanded and improved, has not fundamentally changed.

AA may be a "slower" paced shooter, but that is not to say that the action is any less intense or fast and furious in the midst of a CQ fight. Instead of the instant respawn on death or the 100 mile an hour sprint across country you find in other games, everything in AA is modeled to require time, effort, and most important, tactical awareness. This is the game's appeal for no small number of dedicated players and why I still log in even if I have a larger number of games to play after all these years. Waiting till the end of the current round before respawn forces you to start considering what you're doing on the battlefield or to being resigned to spend alot of time in spectator mode. No zerging here. 

And no ammo spawns, no majic health packs, no radar to point out the location of enemy forces manouvering to make contact and destroy your forces doing the same. As is the case in real life, the first to see his opponent often is the winner in a fight. All of these things makes AA a fundamentally different game from the rest of the pack. No grand fireball explosions or brilliant neon colored eye candy. Instead, a grenade going off looks as mundane and understated as it is deceptively lethal.

And while AA has had it's share of problems (sometimes buggy code, servers problems, cheaters, etc) it has had no more than any other commercially driven project and it continues to improve.

A fantastic game to play.....and it IS free.