Arma II is is a great game when you can get into it. However, Arma is an acquired taste that many people don't have.
The most (un)appealing part of the game:
Arma 2 is a simulator, no doubt about it. If you're coming to look for a COD, or a BF like game, for goodness sakes look elsewhere, you won't find it here. This game is extremely hard, take a couple shots and down you go. Most of this you can find in the main gamespot review. So, i'll move on.
The Campign: I have yet to finish the campign, but I happen to find it fun, its got a bit of a slow start. And lets be honest, the VOs absolutely SUCK. But you learn to look past it. You'll notice something during the campaign, this is a bit too "real" for some people. and what I mean by that is, this isn't firefight after firefight, half your time playing is spent reconing trying to find WHERE the enemy is. So most of the time you'll be traveling around the huge island. Don't believe me? The developers took this into mind and put in a FAST FORWARD button (up to 2x and 4x) That should tell you how much traveling is invovled. You'll find that Arma has some of the most intense, hard, firefights than many other games. But similar to real war, Arma is seconds of intense, life-threating, heart-pounding action, and more minutes of slow moving standard days of recon looking over the land, tracking people, etc. But those moment of the game, when everything goes form normal to all out war, is what makes this game beauitful. Let me give you an example. You get to use a transport helicoptor later in the game. I fly around looking at places and all and I don't see any enemy and I tell the pilot to go back to base, all of the sudden out of nowhere I see a anti-air missile come up and hit my helicoptor, killing the engine instantly. me and my team bail, the helicoptor hits the ground, blows up, kills both pilots instantly. me and my team hpapen to land in the middle of a huge amount of soldiers, and we have to fight hard while at the same time retreating. At the end of it, we were running away, 2 of my men up and running, and one on my back being carried becase he got shot.
Its those moments, that make this game fun. I'm going to be honest with you, i'm not here to just advertise the game. If what I said, doesn't seem that interesting, just look elsewhere. Its a very opinitated and acquired taste game. but I happen to love it.