DFX is a fun ride, albeit a short one, that leaves you asking for more. Fortunately with the MODs you can have more!
DFX "out of the box" comes with 20 SP missions spread over three campaigns from the first self-titled Delta Force game but with much better graphics, on par with DFBHD and TS (played recently) and the Joint Operations games. The first three DF series games (above) do not at all date well in terms of graphics. The gameplay however is what set the DF series apart in its heyday and it would be great to replay all those earlier missions using the new graphics engine.
The campaigns are set in the disparate environments of Peru (7 jungle missions vs terrorists), Chad (5 desert missions vs rebels) and Novaya Zemlya (8 missions in snow and blizzards vs renegades). DFX preserves the great gameplay of the earlier DF series games. In DFX, like its better known rival BF2, we finally have drivable vehicles, helicopters and watercraft with much more intuitive controls than BF2/BFV. The array of weapons is somewhat limited compared to say BF2 and similar to those in the earlier DF games and the various MODs available enhance the weapons choices.
Alas DFX also preserves the major negative of all the DF series games: poor AI. This manifests itself in many ways. For example, if you snipe at the enemy from a long distance they actually run towards your position, making them easier targets. Sometimes the enemy has an uncanny ability to shoot you from extremely long ranges with their trusty old AK-47s.
Generally engagements take place at very long range, like GRAW, and occasionally at close range when clearing buildings, like in Rainbow Six. DFX is not however like these games a tactical shooter although you will have team mates on most missions they cannot be controlled, not even in the limited way you could in DFBHD & TS.
That said, DFX is reasonably enjoyable and the "high score" system motivated me to replay the missions and try harder to complete the missions without getting killed and losing accumulated mission experience points. Unlike DFBHD & TS there is no save system, if you die you return to near the last completed waypoint with a zero score (points are gained primarily by terminating bad guys).
You can, of course, ignore the points system and just keep playing until the mission is completed and the next one unlocked. As the missions play out very much the same way each time you can improve on your high score on subsequent replays. However like DFBHD & TS some missions are genuinely harder than others.
The enemy AI and progressive (re)spawn point system together make this game relatively EASY. Alas one cannot adjust the gameplay difficulty level, but as noted there is a mix of difficulties among the missions, so when considered over the campaign this arguably makes the game "average" difficulty.
As others have said in the various reviews at GameSpot, DFX shines in its multiplayer aspect. I played a number of co-op missions online and it was great fun. DFX is very similar to BF2 or BFV in the online department and DFX, to me, has the better SP missions. Like BF2 & BFV, DFX has lots of good SP and MP mods and maps available and a very active online community so you can still readily join an online MP game using the inbuilt NovaWorld interface. Now to me, most online FPS games are much of a muchness, sure some have different weapons or environments but if your looking for a good modern warfare genre MP FPS then you could do a lot worse than pick up a copy of DFX, which is usually "budget priced" in most retail outlets.
For me DFX is on par with the similar DFBHD & TS games and closest to the Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising and Escalation MP games (previously reviewed) also from NovaLogic, but which have no inbuilt SP missions.
Like DFBHD & TS, DFX is a small, single CD-ROM, install and its MODs and MAPs take up a fraction of the space required by BF2 or BFV and their add ons. The only "glitch" I have noticed is that I cannot get screenshots at resolutions higher than the recommended graphics setting. So when I play using the maximum graphics settings no screenshot is saved and a Windows error message comes up after exiting the game and your new high score for that mission is NOT registered. Apart from that, like DFBHD & TS, it runs without a hitch at max graphical settings on medium and high end systems.
My initial rating of "out of the box" for DFX was less than 8.0. I have now increased my rating to 8.0 ... in other words on par with DFBHD & TS. Why? Well it's the MODs that are freely available to DFX. I discuss these in more detail below but suffice it to say due to the reasonable commonality of Novalogic's DFX between DFBHD/TS and Joint Operations (Typhoon Rising and Escalation) modders have been able to make DFX into another BF2 by adding the elements from JO (weapons and character skins, weapons and a vast array of vehicles, vessels and aircraft) and in essence made DFX into the SP a SP version of the excellent JO.
As noted having completed the three DFX SP campaigns I was left asking for more. Well the really good news is that DFX, like DFBHD, JO, BF2 & BFV, has a number of MODs amd SP maps available. Some of the MODs are based on ones for DFBHD & TS, while others rely on the newer Joint Operations engine. There is still a strong and active community of modders for DFX so a few more may see the light of day or atleast be updated/upgraded.
Installing MODs to DFX can be a bit tricky (see my 18 Nov 2009 blog) but in the case of the ones I've rated 2 stars "**" or above are well worth it.
A comprehensive description of the DFX MODs I have tried, in the order of playing (with version number and approximate download size), follows:
Deep Jungle Xtreme (DJX v2.4, ~250MB)***: the DFX Deep Jungle Xtreme MOD (DJX, v2.4) has two excellent campaigns: "Deep Jungle" essentially the same set of 6 missions, including the unusual but fun "Grave of God" mission as found in the DFBHD version, but with different character skins, modified environments, changed weather and time of day to the original. There is also a whole other even better campaign of 7 missions in the DFX version of Deep Jungle called "East Camp", with missions like "Monastery" and "Poisoned Air" (action takes place inside a massive chemicals plant complex) in which you need to track down each and every bad guy to complete the missions. DJX uses the vanilla DFX pop-up zoomed-scope view but adds a few new weapons.
Mi-6 (v1.0 ~20MB)*: essentially a weapons mod with excellent skins and sound. There are no new SP missions, but you can replay the 20 DFX missions with these new weapons. Note that this is NOT a "realistic" mod in that all weapons seem to have zoom-able scopes, unrealistic ammo supply and strange alternate fire modes for the primary weapons (eg. the MP5 fires what seem to be in effect a series of mini-cluster bombs, the M4 fires a cascade of flashbangs, etc). Needless to say this gives you overwhelming fire superiority and makes the missions a breeze. Fun, but for only a short while.
Special Ops (SO, v1.0 ~580MB patched)***: a fantasctic MOD with two new SP campaigns ("Special Ops" containing 9 missions versus terrorists and "Island Wars" containing 8 missions versus "The Lynx", a renegade ex-Soviet general) and a stand-alone "instant action" mission called "Iceman's Illusion" (versus a drug lord). The SP campaigns are both fun and challenging and in which you get to select from a vast array of modern weapons with realistic scopes (no longer the pop-out zoomed view effect used by vanilla DFX), drive/fly/operate a variety of transports. There are also about 10 new COOP missions that can be played SP on LAN. Additionally all the skins for the various natonalities in JOTR & JOEsc, male and female, are available (including the regular and special forces of many "free-world" nations, including Australia, and "rebel" and mercenary). In addition to a vast array of assault and sniper rifles and LMGs you get to use Stinger and Javelin missiles. Your fixed secondary weapons are a MK-23 pistol, silenced MP5 and medpack. So you can select almost any primary weapon you like as you'll always have the MP5 for close quarters. It's simply a great MOD and well worth the download.
Black Ops (BO, v1.0 ~752MB)**: is a pretty large download that incorporates and expands on SO, including weapons and character skins and adds a new HUD and a restyled equipment selection menu that allows for selection of secondary weapons (including various pistols or silenced MP5). Without any dedicated SP campaigns or missions BO is arguably a weapons mod BUT with it has a number of new MP missions including 3 new COOP that can be played SP on LAN. You can of course replay the original DFX SP missions using the new weapons, many of which are availabel in the Rainbow Six and GRAW series, including XM8, Steyr, TAR21, Javelin and Stinger. This is what vanilla DFX should have been.
VX (VX, v1.2 ~254MB)**: is, on face value, a weapons (including flamethrower) and skins mod like BO which allows replay of the original 20 SP missions. VX (v.1.2) HOWEVER comes with over 60(!) new COOP maps playable SP on LAN and a trailer load of other MP maps. This mod has more bloodspray than vanilla DFX, but not in an overwhelming way. Your default secondary weapons are the M-23 pistol, flare gun and shot gun. The MP maps have German titles, which a basis German-English dictionary will decipher, some dialogue is in German however the mission objectives and goals are in clear English. The excellent mod is available from www.bearforce.de which is also responsible for the BF and DJ3 mods.
V9TE MED (V9TE, patched ~115Mb)*: essentially a minimal weapons, skins and environments mod and an earlier version of VX. One SP "instant action" mission called "Blue Tiger Snow" and about 100 MP maps of which about 50 are COOP and playable SP on LAN. There are many V9TE MP maps available around the various DFX sites.
Deep Jungle 3 (DJ3 ~526MB)**: incorporates elements V9TE/VX. Despite the title DJ3 is not connected with DJX (my reading indicates that "Deep Jungle" was incorporated in a number of MOD titles due to the success of the original). DJ3 comes with about 30 COOP missions and a separate map-pack with over 200 COOP missions all playable SP on LAN. Some of the DJ3 maps do have an annoying feature, which is "critters" these are deadly NPCs like snakes, rats, spiders and piranhas on maps ... fortunately these can be removed from a map using the "BFM Pest Repeller" program. All up looking around the various DFX fansites there are several hundred DJ3 MP maps, including COOP/SP, available. DJ3 v3.3, the final version, is available but failed repeatedly to install properly on my PC. Anyway, DJ3 has been superceded by BF.
Bear Force (BF, v1.2 ~682MB)***: this is an update, upgrade and expansion of its predessors: V9TE, VX and DJ3. BF gives you all of the best of its earlier incarnations and allows you to play all the countless DJ3 maps. BF comes with 7SP missions and over 300 MP missions, mostly COOP. So arguably BF is the "directors's cut" of DJ3. In addition to those annoying "critters" some missions also have a twisted sense of humour and the choice of soundtrack music is at times questionable ... the action in the majority of missions however is GOOD. BF v1.3 is also available but seems less stable and the BF Game Control Center, intended for DFX and JO MODs, did NOT work for me.
Based on this all you need to download to have a more or less complete DFX experience is DJX, SO and BF. Alas you will find none of these MODs here at GameSpot but they can be found at the following DFX sites, generally in the downloads section: www.dfreload.com, www.nova-inside.com, www.hardmaps.com, www.bearforce.de, or www.novahq.net. Note that the MP missions of these MODs are best played on LAN or dedicated servers (see listings at these sites) as you may be punted or banned trying to log into NovaWorld servers that are not mod compatible.
I guess with all these hundreds of SP and COOP missions DFX does not really have a replayability problem. I have only skimmed the surface of the LAN COOP missions.
OVERALL: A good "budget priced" modern warfare FPS with lots of good SP and MP add-ons readily available free on the internet. DFX still has a reasonably strong online MP presence. With the available maps, MODs and online capability DFX can provide many hours of FPS fun ... just like BF2.
Caveat: for those more interested in online MP FPS, rather than SP missions, then the more recent NovaLogic offerings of Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising and Escalation (available together as "Combined Arms") are now more popular online. JOTR and JOEsc are obvious derivatives of DFX although the JO series is now better supported due to it being "massively multiplayable". As noted above you can now enjoy the JO skins, weapons, environments and vehicles in SP format in some the various DFX MODs.