Hey guys, long term lurker on the AT forums. Throwing in my two cents on BF5 (I've been enjoying the series since 1942).
I've pretty much stopped playing as the cheating has gotten overwhelming. I hear the comments that every game has cheaters and that is very true. I've watched guys snapping around like stop animation in BF2 with aim bots, and then there was that infamous video of a guy screen sharing with a clan he was trying to join and not even turning off his wall hacks. In BF3 I remember getting killed while driving a tank by an MP7, lol, and there was a guy on Caspian hanging out in the russ uncap plinking people in the US uncap. But in BF5 it has become too much. I've watched enough Youtube videos of this at this point to convince me its not just my lack of skill.
Compounding the cheating is the lack of private servers. This to my mind is a critical error from DICE. Private servers can set up private rules, police themselves and have actual admins monitoring the chat and player activity. In BF2 I was an admin for a clan that very tightly policed their servers. There was always at least one admin monitoring. As a result the server was hugely popular. We kicked people who's ping was too high, who were abusing chat etc. Also private servers and clan rules can add variety to game play.
The battlefield franchise has always been about combined arms and BF5 really misses the mark here. Vehicles are too few, to hard to get and pointless once you do. And the exposed gunner situation just makes tanks a one person effort rather than allowing team play with a squad mate watching your back with the mg.
The maps are pretty boring. The weapons and weapon customization feel like work and feel pointless. The loss of Battlelog for setting up load outs and options is felt substantially.
In summary I miss the BF experience, but I'm not holding my breath the EA is going to let DICE bring it back.