It's been a very long time since last I gamed on a PC, but for the close to two decades that I did it, out of all the games that I've ever played, this one is my all time favorite...
Everything else for me failed in comparison. I was like a crack addict when it came to COD 4! Heck one of my previous computer systems, nick named the Beast, was solely built around the system requirements for COD 4, granted I went way over the requirements, way over!
I absolutely love WWII era games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and even though I don't care for whatever the type of game Company of Heroes is, I love that one and it's expansions. Even with combat flight sims, give me WWI or WWII era stuff.
I have a few modern warfare games but I think the focus shifts too much to the technology. Once, certain combat situations had limited means to overcome. It required planning and technique and sacrifice to say, over-run a a fortified gun emplacement. It required flanking, suppression fire, men to advance to get up close and personal to take it out and then forcibly enter and clear it. That's a far cry from calling in a ground penetrating bunker buster launched from 100 miles away. Granted, as a vet, I'd have rather waited in cover for the bunker buster to do its work than rush the hill to chuck a satchel charge through a gun slot. But, as a gamer, whether I'm playing a grunt being told to get up the hill, or a squad leader told to take the gun out, one gives me more of a challenge than the other.
I have Lock On which is modern aircraft. While the planes are fun and flying them is cool, combat with them was not all that satisfying. It was all blips and bleeps and colored shapes on the HUD and following computer readout instructions. Even firing something, I just hit a button and away goes the rocket or bomb and chases down and destroys the target. I'm just Death's taxi. While there is a degree of satisfaction in that and doing it successfully, there's something more human about and man to man with diving out of the sun against an enemy airfield behind the stick of WWI Fokker DVII with only nerve, a cross hair sight, and luck that will let you succeed and allow you to get home that night. Wings creak, the engine howls, the guns usually jam, you have maybe 300 rounds, no bombs and only painted canvas for armor. In Lock On a ground attack at Mach 2 is there, over, and gone so fast there is little to see. Behind the stick of a P-51D hot after an FW 110 is something so much more personal where it's you and your ability as a pilot that determine who gets to go back home. There are no smart weapons and no computers to help you. You have to keep a situational awareness because no computer is going to warn you when you are in an enemy's sights or flying dangerously close to losing control.
No knock on the modern stuff or those that like to play them, but having played most all of the WWII games and trying some of the modern warfare games, I'll pick the WWII stuff almost every time.
For someone who has never played this type of shooter before, I think it's the better way to go older like WWII era because there is simply less stuff to figure out and manage. It's mostly movement and cover and marksmanship. With most of the WWII based games, you don't fly except in the Battlefield series or drive much beyond a Jeep and maybe a tank, but it's all pretty simple. Simple to operate, that is. Once you get that down, then go high-tech where there is much more to manage and interact with.
NOTE- I had to pull the link and image HTML tags from your quote since I have too few posts here to be able to post images or links. Even though they were actually in your post and I quoted you, I still couldn't post with them in it. All apologies.