Recent reviews by AWACS Ray

It's what you can see and expect, and more.
This is a project of passion that has succeeded.

The main positive highlight of this new title is, surprisingly for me, the gameplay.
The core hasn't changed, but enemies are more proactive in locking onto and firing away at you compared with previous titles. This makes for a potentially more engaging or stressful experience - depends on who you are and the mission you're on, of course, but I found it to be the former.
The main negative highlight of this new title is, unsurprisingly for me, the soundtrack and story. We've lost the whole team of people who have worked on many of the previous titles. Many cooks in one kitchen managed to create a more cohesive sound in Ace Combat Zero than one man could do here - although, after watching a certain Dev Diary, it seems another guy was there to interfere with the chief composer's thoughts. Despite being composed by only one person, the soundtrack feels like it was written over many, many years, during which many things changed and, fires died out, and things got lost. Yes, there are great tracks, but a few good ones do not compensate for many more underwhelming ones. The story, too, feels like it changed many times during development, and never really got tightened up to the degree of previous titles. It's not just that the soundtrack and story are "not as good as the last ones" because that isn't a really legit argument - they're just kind of underwhelming standalone.
These are really minor grips, though, that don't matter to many people.
It's a polished and balanced experience, and you'll probably some good fun out of it - sweaty palms on your peripheral of choice must mean it's working!