Another case of EA rushing a potential out the door well before it was ready.
Within a few minutes of joining a server (and this was after applying the 300meg patch) I noticed problems. The biggest is the games performance. If your thought BF2 was a system hog wait until you play Special Forces. On a 64 player server running 'Gator' it became a complete laggy mess. The BF2 engine was not designed for this close indoor room over room action, throw in teargas, flash bangs, helicopters, boats, machine gun spam and clueless newbies running around the gameplay bogs to a crawl at times. (running a AMD 64 3500 with 2gig of ram and a X850XT video card). Even the story of MEC Special Forces storming a Nuclear Carrier is ridiculous, were the entire 3000+ crew members out having a swim?
Players who enjoyed the more infantry based maps in BF2 may be slightly disappointed to find many of the SF maps still cater towards helicopters and tanks. I was personally a little depressed to see so many vehicles thrown into what was esentially a infantry based addon pack. Some maps like Mass Destruction can be controlled by an effective chopper crew. As their are no jets and little air defense the choppers only threat is another enemy chopper. (small arms fire still has very little impact on helicopters).
There are also many bugs (check some of the forums for the complete lists) that should have been removed before this game was shipped. Medics unable to revive fallen comrades even when they are calling out for assistance, players surviving .50 machinegun rounds, players getting stuck to objects (more common in the interior areas) many of the annoying hitbox problems from BF2 are still present as well.
The load times are longer than BF2's and seen most of the maps are smaller I have no idea what the reason is for that, and changing your graphic settings will still put you through the age long wait as the game 'optimises textures for best performance'.
There are some very good parts to Special Forces though. The nightvision is well implemented. Flashbangs and teargas are very effective at clearing rooms, the sound effects, especially the guns sound excellent and the new SAS British Accents add some colour. Most of the new unlockable weapons are a good step up from the standard BF2 range although the sniper and Antitank class don't receive any changes except for a new, more usless antitank rocket launcher. The Hind, BMP and the Apache are welcomed new additions. The other new vehicles are fairly ordinary even though it includes the novelty jetskis. It's a pity that the MEC Special Forces do not have any bonus guns though so you have to make do with the standard BF2 arsenal.
If you cannot get enough BF2 and have grown tired of the standard maps, Special Forces should help fill the void, provided you have the hardware and patience to put up with the games problems. My only tip is to buy it in the stores, the EA download system has received numerous complaints about it's unreliability and slow performance.
My final thought is this game feels more like a map pack with some new features than a new game.