Excellent game. It's really fun to play and keeps you coming back. You don't need to memorize aircraft systems like DCS. It's more of a "simcade" type. Strategy is key and knowing how to strike different targets is key. I'm looking forward to see what the future holds for this game.

I chose the nuclear option

After about 18 hours of playing Escalation against AI, here are my first impressions:

For those concerned about steam deck support: you have to tap some of the menu features/bind mouse and click to the right touchpad, but other than that the game has excellent controller support. I basically solely play on my deck.

The tutorial is good but not all-encompassing, and expects you to be at least somewhat familiar with basic concepts of flight and air combat (what a velocity vector is, what different munitions are and what their intended targets are, etc.). This can lead to some frustration if you're new to the genre (like me), but a little supplementary research goes a long way. The tutorial also gives NO instruction for the helicopters and other VTOL craft in the game, which led to some "learning experiences" involving counterrotation and civil infrastructure. Overall, you have to google some of the information. Things like "what is this kind of missile used for", "why is my helicopter spinning", etc.

The good thing about the tutorial is that it teaches you how to properly use your countermeasures, how to do some basic flight maneuvers, etc. You don't really have too many moments dogfighting in this game. Two interceptors may have to do some fancy flying if they meet eachother, but, for the most part, they'll shoot a missile at eachother in passing and go on to hunt more important aircraft.

BVR missiles also exist, and are good for harassing aircraft at range. You'll sometimes get a kill with them too.
The issue that people talk about with the radar and SAM coverage does exist, but can be accounted for. Yes, it's a bit unrealistic for the airspace to be THIS contested and to have enemy radar coverage over every major airport, but they're also not immediately shooting missiles at you, even though they could. Instead, radars effectively limit the altitudes planes can fly at, requiring you to effectively use the terrain as cover and plan out your flight paths when carrying out strike and bombing missions.

You basically have to do pop-up attacks on every target to hit it, and to ensure your payload will hit, you have to spend some time taking out the local anti-air installations while ensuring you keep your altitude limited to avoid being missiled to death. It can be frustrating, and requires a fair amount of skill, but it's (usually) not unfair, just hard. You can perform easier missions and just strike ground vehicles instead if you want, it still helps your side pretty significantly.

The game has surprisingly few bugs, and the ones that are present aren't a huge deal. Sometimes a missile just doesn't notify you it's locked on at all and your plane just kinda explodes. Sometimes missiles lock on a little too good and no amount of countermeasures can stop them (yes, both flaring and notching w/ jamming). Occasionally your airbase is nuked immediately after you buy your plane and you just lose anything that blew up. These are frustrating when they happen but don't happen often enough to write off the game.

Some parts of the game design can be frustrating, but understandable, i.e. if you want to drop a nuke on a site, you have to destroy ALL AA, SAM, etc. emplacements at that site, or destroy a few and drop a lot of small bombs in addition to 2-3 nukes to ensure at least one hits. Spamming cruise missiles with the Darkreach is unfortunately effective, and you can take out enemy destroyers and installations at long ranges with it. ARAD missiles are more effective at hitting planes with radar than they are at engaging radar installations at BVR. Enemy installations can sometimes shoot every single thing you fire at them down if you aren't able to spam a LOT of munitions at once.

Overall, very fun game with a lot of nuance and a rewarding learning curve. Blowing things up with heavy ordinance in an airplane is always fun, and you do a lot of that, so I enjoy the game.