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As a twenty-something, there is a fierce competition in the games industry for my modest earnings. Few games do what Combat Mission does, and that's why I keep playing the demos. I will hold off on buying the full games, though.
 
The occasionally-terrible AI is not a little thing you can handwave away. T-90AM gets laser warning'd by a completely non-threatening Bradley at point blank range and reverses into an Abrams while the turret spins impotently? Seen it more than once. Slightly nervous Jerries refusing to shoot back in favour of spinning around on the ground while Americans run over them? Yes. ****ed-up pathfinding -- why can't the game show the actual path instead of making me guess whether Private Johnson will drive his Jeep straight into the ambush I explicitly tried to avoid? Why do the soldiers cluster around each other so that any RPG can take them all out at once? (Happened to my opponent in the CMBS demo, so nice)
 
I'm no rivet-counter, but some semblance of sense is kind of important for immersion. Clustered soldiers etc. always make me go from "Man, I really should buy the full version" to "Nah, **** this, I was trying to save anyway" in no time flat. CM has its moments, and I've been playing since CMBO came out, but just no. I guess it seems really good if hexes and chits were what you grew up on, but I didn't.

Is this a Tolkien thread now?
 
I hope the scenarios won't be like many were in CMSF -- one-sided stomp affairs where all the OPFOR are puny reserve conscripts and BLUFOR troops Crack/Elite gods. My friends largely refuse to H2H me because of the scenario balance in that game.