You've got to have that aviation passion in you to fully appreciate combat flight sims, or any flight sim for that matter.
Unless you are truly into something, you certainly won't invest the time to do it properly. Most of my friends will say, yeh that looks cool let's have a go...and after five minutes of wallowing all over the sky they'll get bored and say don't know how you can stand doing that so much.
Flightsims are a specialist niche, just like mountain climbing, angling, crafting or any other pastime you could mention.
Enjoy these sims, enjoy the graphics, enjoy the history they re-write, enjoy the admiration for the guys & gals who do it for real and those guys who did it way back when, whatever their nationality. There isn't a pilot who doesn't love flying, and minority that get disillusioned loved it once.
So, if you read a dodgy review...smile and raise one eyebrow if you can, safe in the knowledge that you'll know more than the mork who wrote that ever will. After all, it's what you think that matters, no-one else !