I have played HOI2 before. My major problems with it were:
1. It takes the same amount of time to play the game as it took to fight WWII.
2. It's hard to get a good "stop point" when playing in realtime. You wind up playing to 2:00am if you're not careful. Dangerous for people with lives and careers.
3. I didn't like the combat system. Several major battles can all be going on at the same time and it is impossible to focus on them. I like it when you quickly attack the opponent and he either retreats, is destroyed (or takes damage), or you have to stop or be destroyed yourself. I also feel like I lose out by not being able to rellish and enjoy each of my battles. Not to mention you may have to adjust your politics, research, builds, and economy why all this goes on and it really gets out of hand. Convinced me turn based is better. If you slow the time down you can do a better job handling it but see #1 above.
4. I don't like that you have to keep putting patches on the game. I'm not a techie so I had to learn all about patches when I got HOI2. Darn it, when someone takes my hard earned money I expect a quality product that is good to run from the start! Don't waste my time with fix its. Can anyone say Toyota recall?
5. I finally got HOI2 off my computer, however, it still shows in the directory and I can't seem to get rid of it there. Oh well, at least it isn't hurting anything.
6. I was researching HOI3 as it might have improved and become more fun. However, a lot of customers are complaining online that HOI3 runs terribly slow, has a lot of bugs and last I checked has four patches to it. hmmm. That doesn't sound like a product I want to invest my money into. Also, if you go on YouTube you can find some really, really hilarious videos made of peoples problems with HOI3 (I love the video where Hitler is cussing out his officers who are supposedly the game developers. It's a hoot).
That's my take.
Geofighter