Leaked basic features of BF3, and are as listed:

* Release in late 2008
* Powered by “Frostbite DX”
* Set in year modern day (just like BF2, ed.)
* Will ship with 8 maps, each supporting up to 40-players per team
* Two playable factions, NATO and MEC (Middle Eastern Coalition)
* Same “ticket-based” gameplay style as before
* Maps are mostly urban, based in Middle East
* Squads and Commanders are present, introduced are “Battalions” which consist of three to four squads.
* Five playable classes; Sniper, Assault, Engineer, Medic and Support
* Will feature 48 different vehicles (24 for each faction)
* Will feature 34 different weapons (17 for each faction) and another 22 unlocks (for both factions), in total 56 different weapons.
* Other unlocks include different types of ammunition, body armor, helmets, camouflage and accessories.
* Possible public beta in “Summer 2008″
* Online stats tracking, awards and “real world ranks”
* “Soldier” feature, looks like MMO-styled characters and avatars
* Ranked servers will be available for resellers weeks before the game ships (for testing, apparently, ed.)
* In-game replay and recording feature
* VoIP, friends list, in-game IM-client and “extensive clan support”
* Built-in auto software updater (no more patches!, ed.)
* Widows Vista and OS X (no XP?!, ed.)
* Announcement and teaser trailer in January 2008.

A map is mentioned by name, called “Baghdad Burning”, and appears to be a massive urban map, similar to BF2’s very popular “Strike at Karkand”. The game is powered by “Frotbite DX”, currently the Frostbite engine is used in Battlefiled: Bad Company on PS3 and Xbox 360. The “DX” could refer to DirectX (10?), a PC version of the Frostbite engine.

sounds like BF2 all over again

Critics have definately labled it was BF2 reskinned.

Looking back at BF2 now, the engine was horribly designed. Those load times we're insane and the game was crazy buggy if you didn't have the perfect drivers. Call of Duty 4 is a generation ahead graphically and loads in a tenth of the time. So if you made a reliable, low bs engine based on BF2's gameplay, I'd be game. I loved BF2 but the exploits they stopped patching we're too annoying. I perferred BF2s ranking system too vs the CoD4 instant general system.

yea, true, at the moment i have no intention on buying it off of a whim. gonna just sit back and wait it out and hope that maybe it's worth buying.

We got Kelsey's mom to buy us BF2142 as one of our xmas presents a few years back, and after that I lost interest in the BF series because I couldn't see them revamping the system to a point that it would interest me any longer. I definitely would like to see this one be more innovative, but currently I doubt I would warrant paying 40-50 dollars on a reskin of BF2. Maybe 30 if there wasn't anything else out that was a better multiplayer FPS.

The Battlefield always is and probably always will be an online series. If you don't intend to play exclusively online, never worth buying imo.

you know you wanted that BF for PS2 dawg, or BF:Bad Company for PS3 for that uber single player action

Err. no I don't like FPS on console and I mostly want online FPS but not really anything new that has caught my eye particularly other than COD4.

being VERY sarcastic btw

So they missed the release date a little bit but it's still a great game. However, it's crazy easy to cheat so that was very disappointing...