Well this is like call of duty with planes (when call of duty was cool)
Arcady and simplistic, but insanely funny and addicting this is a perfect game to relax, even on high difficulties, when you can die relatively easy.
Apart from ace combat being generally an arcade game AH brings this even further with dogfight mode, despite the fact, that you are glued to your opponent, system works exeptionally well by adding more cinematic look, feel of contact with your enemy, and, occasionally, beautyfull scenery around, with falling cranes, towers and planes. Out of DFM its your general flying game, when you can't spin out of control, run out of fuel, or die of some malfunction, since your plane regenerates health at alarming speed.
despite its simplicity game has some nice touches - all control surfaces are articulated, flight computer voice changes, depending on the plane, variable wing geometry planes actually thansform if you change speed, all stealth capable planes have their payload hidden inside and properly animated, and the most subtle, yet awesome - all modern russian planes have unique dodge animation - cobra move, which is a signature move for sukhoi planes.
Good variability between missions, standart dogfights, AC130 missions, heli missions, bomber missons.
Bad things include:dead online, boss fights, helicopter missions( because of bad cockpit view you will have to fly in second camera mode, or suffer unresponsive controlls), and missons on ground attack planes (because some gun emplacements are indestructible, and some others will spawn on spaces you grounded seconds before, sometimes it also hard to understand - is it your mistake, or enemy is just invulnerable right now).
Final boss battle is a complete mess, over which you have almost no controll of, in my list of crappy bossfights it takes second place, right after Liquid Ocetot fight in MGS4. (probably devs tried to make a product placement for PAK-FA, but damn, flying at mach15 and shooting rockets backwards, ain't that some hardcore sh*)
Story is a total garbage - evil general BALALAIKA stole some nuclear BEARS to seize all VODKA in mother Russia, helping him are two ace pilots BORIS MATRYOSHKA and PYOTR SRAKIN, who apparently care only about nuking Moscow and some other New Yorks. Feeling sorry for voice actors, who really tried their best playing their characters. Also - main antagonist is the only character, that can decently speak russian, but his dialogues are written by a complete mоron. Japan is always falling several years behind when it comes to western market trends, year before AH came out SC:Conviction where russians aren't main bad guys, so seing so much trash is a surprise, (again, think about COD)
Graphically game looks rather nice, it has some blurry look to it, but planes are drawn in great detail, and ground surface got quite a lot attention from designers, Flying in Dubai, Moscow, and DC is a real pleasure. you can even see ground troops, if you try hard enough.
Overall, recomended even for non flight sim players, and to old AC fans i can recommend to give this game a fresh look and play it as it is, and not as part of legendary series.