Combat Commander

Played Combat Commander at Club Dave last night.
Now for those not in the know, Combat Commander is a popular board game series from GMT Games using card decks to control company sized tactical battles. Everything is driven from the cards. 'Dice' are tested by turning cards, random events come from cards and even the length of the game are driven by the decks.
As was said, a very popular series with regular expansion releases, over a hundred scenarios, infinite ability to mix and match to invent your own games off the cuff and, due to the randomness of the system, lots of replayability.
Having said that, AWB really doesn't like it that much.
So, having taken off in the face of public opinion and streaked naked in front of the partisan fan, why does AWB take this stand?
Randomness and gaming the system.
Each deck is 72 cards. Depending on the situation a player will have a hand of between four and six cards. To do ANYTHING you need to play a card, but what if that card is the 'wrong' one?
Well, too bad.
Each card has an 'Order' type listed on it. Move, Fire, Advance, Recover et al. There is by extension a limited amount of each in each deck. Now because the game engine also means you are turning cards to cover dice rolls and random events, it is possible that the cards you want may not come out into your hand until the next reshuffle, and even then, may not the next time either.
The fans and supporters of the system argue that this represents the eb and flow and confusion of battle. Yes, fair enough, no real world situation has radio controlled troops and for various reason troops often fail to act in manners which would be perfectly obvious to outside observers.
On the counter side, the game encourages you to hog some of the really useful cards. Ambush, a card that allows an instant flip on an enemy unit in melee combat is a prime example. What this means is that rather then being able to have a broad plan and see if come off, you are effectively setting your troops up the best you can and then playing for the moment. Those Ambush cards you have in your hand? Best hang onto them as it looks like my opponent is setting up for something... and since they are now 50% of my hand, guess I wont be doing too much else until one of us actually attempts to go to melee. The player can at times become nothing more then an observer, victim to whatever fate the card deck turns over, playing cards not part of a cunning master plan, but as the appear.
There are other points. Game length is controlled by how many times a card deck is passed through. This means if you are ahead on VP it is in your best interest to burn through the decks as fast as possible and can result in taking actions not because they will do something useful on the game board, but because they burn through a lot of cards. An example? In last night's game, AWB was playing the defender. The attacking side had gained from random events offboard artillery support. In the decks are cards that 'break' offboard support, forcing the owning player to waste cards 'fixing' the support before it can be used. As the defender, AWB decided it was better to not play a card to break the attacking artillery for the reason that while being shelled was clearly a risk, to bring down an attack the owning player was going to be required to play or turn over a minimum of 10 cards.
Card burn kids. The quicker the decks are worked through the quicker the game ends and the quicker the defender gets his shot at winning. Ever so slightly gamey...
Still, the game IS very popular. Inspect the GMT upcoming releases and dare yourself not to find another expansion set on the list. And by what metric are we to judge games anyway? People, flaws or no flaws, enjoy buying, owning and playing Combat Commander, so even if AWB would prefer to game something else, it does show a lot of people are having good fun.
Which, when you think about it, is all really matters.