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Other than optimisation and bug fixing I can't think of anything that would really provide as much to the game as introducing female characters, or anything that BIS has less of an excuse for not including in at least some form. Excluding 50% of certainly the civilian populations, and a meaningful percentage of the military population, in a game that's meant to be attempting to simulate a civil-war-cum-international-conflict is ridiculous. If it is difficult to do, or might increase the risk of bugs - neither of which I doubt are true - then they could at the very least provide us with female civilians like in Arma 2. All they need to do is move the old models over and change a few of the clothes to look more Mediterranean, and in return for that they'd drastically improve the immersion of the game. Not to mention they'd be showing that they're making an effort towards improving the tarnished reputation of the representation of females in games.

If they chose option 3 they wouldn't have to redo every uniform. In 20 years time Iran isn't going to have women in its armed forces, so CSAT uniforms can remain as is, and on could make an argument that says that the AAF are unlikely to have women in their army, so they can leave. NATO forces are really the only ones with any chance of having a sizable number of women in their army* and so only NATO uniforms would need to be reworked.** Even if they aren't included in the armies, the game needs female civilians; currently missions in towns or cities or that involve civilians in any number are very uncanny. I don't really have much sympathy for BIS if including females is difficult or time-consuming, frankly, I'd rather have female models than shotguns or new vehicles/weaponry. I can get all of those from mods, but this is 2014 and the game should, at the very least, have equal numbers of female civilians. * Although even with NATO it's not likely that the various armed forces will have a sizable female population in 20 years, given how misogynistic the armed forced in most NATO countries are. ** Is it not also a possibility, however clunky it may be, to make different models for uniforms? So a male wouldn't be able to wear a female uniform and vice versa, but they'd still exist? Surely this make sense fluff-wise too as many of the uniforms are made from sturdier stuff than modern fabric and so a woman wearing a male uniform would be less than comfortable.

The Middle East would hardly be a new setting for an FPS - even Combined Ops had that. And it doesn't seem to me like the content is particularly lacking compared to vanilla Arma 2, but we're all used to OA, which significantly increased and varied the roster. There's less factions, certainly, but they were mostly reskins anyway. Less vehicles and weapons I'll grant you, although the 'Field Manual' does mention a lot of vehicle variants - Medical AMVs, AA BTR-Ks, air support Mohawks, AA and recovery Panthers, etc - it would be a shame if they weren't put into the game. The lack of jets and tank variety is concerning, I agree, and I feel that the new aquatic environments are severely underdeveloped vehicle wise: we need more submarine types, larger ships, amphibious helicopters and prop-aircraft, submersible UAVs, armed Sea-Scooters, etc. However, I'd still say the roster isn't particularly low, a bit more weapon variety within factions would be good (recon units could be given special weapons, vehicle crew given smaller carbines, nation-specific underwater weapons and launchers, etc). However, again, it's not significantly less than vanilla Arma 2, if I remember correctly.

I'm really glad that they've taken them game to a near-future setting rather than a present day one. The difference is enough that the new vehicles and weapons are interesting, but are still functionally familiar - I don't see why anybody except the real bores would be upset, the only real difference is the models and skins. We have lots of games based in World War 2, a smattering in Vietnam, and an entire genre effectively in present day; only one, though is set in a war-torn, Grecian 2035.