I finally dug this game out of my backlog, have had it awhile. I didn't play too deep into it, but I just got past the mission where I got to operate the AC-130 gunship's weapons and... oh god that was sweet. The little guys on the ground in my black-and-white view are mine, the ones without strobelights I rain death on from my constantly circling weapons platform.
Actually, I sorta dug the first mission where my squadmates do a lot. It helps me acclimatize to moving around and keeping up with them, and I was going like "awesome, my computer buddies are actually doing things, I'm part of a real functional team!"
In fact, my only real problem with the game so far is it's pretty easy to get lost and lose focus of where my squadmates have run off to. But I guess that's because it isn't as clearly linear a level design as previous games I've played, and also because of the better sense of immersion into the chaos of war.