I'm with the camp that is seeing their poor machines wheez with this new version.
My computer's fairly midrange, a 2 ghz AMD processor, 64mb nvidea video card and 640 RAM. Not great, but well above the "minimum system requirements."
Not too long ago it could run AHII without any problems.
Should I have to go out and drop $500-$700 annually because HTC keeps having these "wouldn't it be neat if we could..." moments? It looks like I'll have to or be forced to vote with my feet.
I've said it before, in an arms race to see if his customers' computers can keep up with HiTech's improvements, HiTech's gonna win.
I wouldn't mind if these things added greatly to gameplay. I didn't complain when trees first appeared. They really do add to gv actions. I started complaining when they began moving to places gvs will never go, taking over maps and killing framerates.
A lot of the new stuff gives me 5 minutes of "Wow, that's cool" until it becomes routine.
For example, the bullet casings dropping from machine guns in buffs or the lighting effects when the guns are fired. Cool when I first noticed them, now not noticed at all.
I agree that a game's gotta grow or it's going to die. But I can't see the point of charging $15 to attract a wide customer base and then driving that base off by continuous tweaks that require continuous upgrades.