Most of the reviews for the first X-Pack on this Amazon page are quite old and were made right after the Road to Rome X-Pack was released. They are positive reviews; but I would suggest that should those very same reviewers write about 'Road to Rome' today, they may indeed have a different perspective on this first X-Pack.

As much as I loved the Original 'Battlefield 1942', I was ultimately quite disappointed with 'Road to Rome'. Indeed today, current on-line 'Battlefield' players seldom play the 'Road to' maps anymore and instead prefer to play the original 'Battlefield' maps. The 'Road' x-pack provided inferior weapons, unacceptable map gliches (to be mentioned later), silly placement of defensive fixed weapons (such as AA guns in unlikely defensive deployments), and an overall uninteresting and rather boring gaming experience. As one writer (at another on-line forum) put it, 'why would I want to spend money on an X-Pack that gives me weaker weapons than in the original Battlefield?' Granted EA was trying to be 'historically correct' as the weapons of the 'French'or 'Italian' armies (in 'Road to Rome')were certainly inferior to the armies (US, Russia, Germany, Japan,)found in the original 'Battlefield' game. But 'historical correctness' does not make for a fun x-pack game; especially when your weapons are weaker than the original 'Battlefield' game and are less fun to play or use.

Regarding the 'Road to ...' maps, they are beautifully detailed, and richer in devlopment and scope than the original 'Battlefield' maps. Unfortunately, they are also much more boring to play--hence today they are rarely played on the Internet; while the original 'Battlefield' maps continue to be played daily. They 'Road to Rome' X-Pack maps are boring for a number of reasons, some of which I will detail here:

1) Unfixed Map gliches: Of all of the 'Road to Rome' maps, the best map is 'Husky.' Husky however also has a map glitch which renders it almost unwinnable by the Axis Team unless the Ally team is populated by veritable newbies to the game. I speak of course of the 'infamous' wall gliche which allows Allies to sneak around the back of the map by climbing (not x-pack jumping which was even worse until patched, this is a permanent wall glitch)a wall/hill which was designed to be insurmountable. Well, the designers made a mistake and haven't fixed it. Therefore the Ally team wins this map virtually every time (unless newbies are involved). It's really a shame because except for this (albeit huge) glich, the 'Husky' map would be one of the best of any of the maps, including the originals.

2) Poor design and deployment of fixed placement defensive weapons: Well, the AA gun emplacements come to mind. The 'Road to Rome' X-pack seemed to have been designed during a period in which the EA designers were too heavily influenced by 'pilots' on their own staff, or perhaps by game-testers who were too heavily airplane oriented. Thus we got the 1.3 patch and the 'Road to Rome' maps with some very strange AA gun locations which render them almost useless. To give EA credit, they have since tried to rectify this particular issue with the 1.4 Patch which brings the AA gun back into the game by making them more effetive against planes (In essence, they reverted back to the 1.2 patch). Unfortunately the 1.4 Patch cannot help the AA guns too much in the 'Road to Rome' maps as the permanent deployment of most (not all, just most) of the AA guns are too far away from the normal traffic patterns of airplanes and just about everything else.

3) Maps like 'Cassino': I must state that I actually like the Monte Cassino map though I know that most people detest it. The idea was sound, and the map was designed for the (French) allies to win with heavy artillary, ala The Priests. This, of course, requires a strong coordinated effort by a like-minded team willing to work as a team and as an army. Well, unless you are in a clan or you play with a bunch of team players (whom you know), this 'heavy artillary' strategy is rendered in-effective as soon as this map begins. Instead the true 'usable' strategy which has devloped (and works mainly vs. poorer axis players) is to try to sneak an infantryman through the killing zone, sneak to the back of the map, capture the monastery flags and work your way down the hill. Not a sound strategy against truly good players.

3) Santa Croce Map: Well the problem with this map is that it's really just the 'BattleAxe' map (round and round you go capturing and losing flags) only not as fun...

In summary, the 'Road to Rome' X-pack just isn't very fun to play and THAT is the first rule of thumb for any game or X-pack. It's gotta be fun. Hopefully the upcoming 'Secret Weapons' will include weapons and maps that are a) fun and b)not inferior to the original 'Battlefield' weapons and maps.

"Excellent Expansion, worth the money"
It may seem like a small package, containing only 6 levels, in addition to the original's 20 something, but they are the 6 best levels in the game. Single player or with some chums, this is as good as gaming gets. [Money] is a cheap price considering how many hours you will spend with these 6 levels, even topping the original.

"This game is a twinkee... great taste, no substance."
Two of my favorite types of games are First-Person Shooters and Flight Simulators, naturally this game grabbed me right away and I bought it. I thought it was the greatest thing out there... for the first two weeks then I went back to Day of Defeat ...
The Good:
This is a one of a kind game, in the fact that it is the first WWII online game to let anyone pilot or drive any vehicle you can get your hands on. This is also one of the first games to let you play with 64 people at the same time. That is about were the good goes sour.

The Bad:
Yeah vehicles are a good idea, but the physics of the Jeeps, APCs, Planes, tanks... and every vehicle in the game seem skewed. The land vehicles slide all over the place making it tough to manuver on treacherous terrain. After some getting use to it though, you can manage. Playing with 64 people is great, except finding a server with that many people playing is difficult. I have seen maybe 3 or 4 64 player servers with A: maxed out people or B: a good pin,g in the months I have had this game. If you are one of the few gamers without a broadband connection, don't even bother, you don't stand a chance online and the single player AI requires a monster machine to run if you want them to be the least bit challenging. Also, the difficulty levels swing from every bot seeming to have a labotomy, to now they are all suddenly Rambo and you get sniped from all the way across the map by some bot with a pistol named Henry Weiner. The weapon models are all pretty ugly, especially the BAR, which looks like something you'd see in your nephews toy chest. The other thing that irks me about this game is it is a WWII simulation with no M1 Garand... just pitiful.

Buy this game if:
-You have a 2.0+ ghz machine, at least 256 megs of RAM, a 64mb video card, a broadband internet connection, you enjoy poorly done vehicles and physics, and you are a glutton for punishment.

Don't buy this game if:
-You want to have fun. Your better off getting the Day of Defeat mod for Half-life ...

"Hard to beat gaming value"
What can I say; this game is a dream comes true. Anyone, who ever played war games as kid, and still harbors that inner child, will revel in this playground. Considering how much fun and entertainment you'll get, this cost for these games is a fantastic bargain. It's like paying 10 cents to get into a theme park and ride free all day.

"Good Expansion, but low value for the money"
This expansion, is good, don't get me wrong. But it seems very lacking. There are very few things which are actually new.

It just feels like it wasn't completed, every new map seems easily recreated if there were a map editor. And most of the weapons and vehicles, while true to their history, seems gameplay-wise, a remodelled version of what was already there.

They also did not see fit to add in any sort of single-player campaign option for the new maps.

Overall it's pretty good, it does expand the map repertoire of the best multiplayer game available, but it just leaves you thinking they should've done more for the $...