This again?

Looks:

1. Satellite terrain textures pasted over landscape. Looks good at high altitude, but crap down low.

2. What's the poly count and size of the aircraft? Did they model nearly as many trees, buildings, vehicles, etc?

Performance:

1. How is the flight model? Is is anywhere nearly as complex as IL-2?

2. What about A.I.? Are there other aircraft? Are there more than 50 in the air at one time, all doing aggressive maneuvers to try and shoot each other down?

3. Damage model? Is there any? Is the sim keeping track of all the damage being inflicted and how it affects flight? Is it doing this for the A.I. as well?

4. Clouds? Are they 3D/Volumetric or are they just 2D sprites that look good, but always look the same from one side? What does it look like to fly through one?

5. What is the complex engine management like? Does it have any? How complex, how much system resources are required?

p.s. your thread title should read: "Why can't IL-2 COD perform as well as this?"