OK as a long time BF player, I will say it.
The idea of the specialists isn't bad. And I found their abilities lead to interesting battle situations. And I like that im not stuck with certain guns. And sure why not? The locked classes has been done to death so fresh ideas are always welcome.
I think the problem is more in the execution of said idea.
First off, they look silly. Their cartoon like visuals don't help esp when you wanna talk "all out warfare". How should they look? Well, look no further but the main soldier of their marketing campaign. That dude isn't in the game. Looks meaner and lean. Had they made the specialists super serious, dark and make clear and obvious separate skins for the US and RU, I think fewer people would complain. So again, I think while they could have been done better, they are not the main problem (at least for me).
The problem or dumbing down is more at the core of the game. They removed everything that WORKED in the past. Server Br, scoreboard, quicker com rose, join squads, the list goes on and on and there are plenty of topics about em. I remember when i booted up the beta and my first thought was - this is a console game. The GUI makes no sense on the PC. blabla
The frustrating thing is, this game could have EASILY been a top notch BF experience, yes, even with the Specialists. Bugs are forgiven because those will get fixed, we know. But the rest is really unforgiving. Balancing has always been and issue and will get tweaked. Thats to be expected.
IMO, had 2042 launched with all the core elements of the past BF games, a better GUI, better visual design of the specialists, incl TDM and RUSH with a few custom maps for each (or even variations of the main maps), at least 50 weapons, more skins, this game could have easily been a 9/10.
Dice had 3 years with no single player contend to create - this experience is lacking in all aspects and im not sure if this game can be saved. The fundamental changes that they would have to do, wont happen. Im 100% sure of it. If we are lucky we will get a updated player board (that you already find in the menu, bottom left) so we have some kind of scoreboard. Yes, vehicles will get balanced, weapon spread will get fixed etc but thats it.