The Arma/Flashpoint game has been going for years, and I guess everyone knows what this game is all about by now, and whether they are going to love or hate it...
There's the FPS people who hate the graphics (esp the fact that they have low contrast and very variable frame rates) occasionally odd AI (things flying into trees, vehicles unable to stay on a road, soldiers that seem to be either sharpshooters or can't even see you from 6 feet away), and the famous glitchy cutscenes and odd voiceovers made up of cut/pasted phrases and voiceover actors that sound suspiciously like the US marketing team filling in after work. Essentially, ARMA is nothing like a traditional blockbuster game, and certainly lacks the immediate gameplay and polish of other long running war franchises (COD, MOH, Crysis, BioShock, etc).
Then there are the people who love ARMA and Flashpoint (except maybe Codemasters OFP:Dragon Rising because it introduces - shock horror - video game sensibilities and isn't an open mod-able world). They love the extensible sandbox and the way the community enthusiastically add content to it, so that once you have finished the main campaign you can easily move on to free community missions, campaigns and new scenarios and objects in no time. Most of all, they love the online gameplay, because it is so realistic that the military use it in training. Finally, they accept that there will be bugs, because this is a consequence of the open ended nature of ARMA; it isn't a game, its a sandbox world, and the AI and environment is so open ended that anything can - and does - happen (even in `on-the-rails cutscenes'!).
I am from the latter crowd, and can see why Arrowhead is worth buying; it adds a whole slew of up-to-date weaponry and a more current set of maps, and you're certainly not buying it for the new campaign, because that's just a day or so of content.
We're not talking new stealth fighters and star wars rays, we're talking building blocks that the developer and community will take up and create cool new stuff. Modern military systems are all about advanced instrumentation, and this is what Arrowhead brings to the table. Arrowhead includes far better simulation of target acquisition systems (beyond visual range weapons telementry, low light and infra red visual simulation and remotely piloted devices) that bring the simulation out of the 80's and into the modern computerised battlefield of 2010.
As well as the modern weaponry we have the juxtaposition of a feudal and retro enemy waging unconventional war. Yes, we're talking of `Takistan', a thinly disguised Afganistan. Not only is this extremely current, the choice of desert maps also ups the frame rates you see in ARMA2 vanilla; I can run at significantly better resolution/rendering resolution/view distance using the new Takistan maps than ARMA2 vanilla maps because the latter have much more processor killing foliage.
Finally, some practicalities and disclaimers
Although this is a standalone expansion, it seemed to know that I already had ARMA2 vanilla, and installed in the same folder. It also picked up my existing mod folders, so you won't have to re-install your favourite mods again for Arrowhead. In fact, Arrowhead includes an in-game mod selector, so you can finally select/deselect mods in-game rather than having to add .exe -params or using a third party launcher.
Arrowhead is also big on filesize; it requires 8GB of disk space, so its obviously adding a lot of content.
I am running with a Quad core and ATI 4850 in Windows XP, and am seeing a very playable game at 1920x1200 (both screen and rendering resolution) with everything set to high except anti-aliasing (disabled) and view distance (set to 2000).
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