Criticisms? Microsoft Flight Simulator is a PC game through and through, and this is a PC port without the kind of streamlined interface you might want from a console game. That starts with an initial two-minute load (yes, two minutes on a next-gen system) and is swiftly followed by a rather clunky, unintuitive interface obviously designed to be navigated with a mouse. Even after the circa 100GB download, you're not really done: visit the Marketplace, go to the 'free' area and there are various extra packs you should grab. On the one hand, that's a whole lot of extra downloading but on the other, at least you have some degree of flexibility with the game's storage footprint. The loading is a pain, for sure, but it is thankfully mitigated by Quick Resume, which is invaluable in this title by bypassing the initial load and getting you straight back into your flight.
It's perhaps ironic that our only criticisms with the game are all derived from the fact that it is fundamentally a PC port - and it's difficult to be too disappointed by this bearing in mind that we've been playing the PC game for over a year and so we understand just how taxing and challenging it is to run well. For the record, all of the performance dips we noted on Series X - right down to the 787 Dreamliner cockpit issue - are also present on the PC version of the game, which is how we found them in the first place on a game of this vast size! With that said, the PC game has also been improved with much-needed CPU optimisations that Asobo presentations suggest will be transformative. We'll be following up on that - and sharing more on the console versions of Flight Simulator - soon.