If you bought a military FPS and expected anything other than a linear experience from single player, I have to wonder if you've played a military FPS before. >>
Well, I played BF2 a fair bit without playing multiplayer more than once. I played STALKER for hundreds of hours. I played COD:MW without playing MP at all; I played BFBC2 without being able to get it to run MP at all (not entirely sure why, something to do with being unable to convince it that I was running Punkbuster.) BFBC2 at least allows you to run around different sides of the target building when trying to reach the destination. BF3? Not so much.
I played Red Orchestra: Ostfront in Single player a lot (but also multiplayer when I could find enough players on a server with a ping lower than 200).
I live on the arse ends of the internet. When I tried BF2 multiplayer it got old really quickly having ping times two or three times longer than the other players.
BF3 has NZ and Aussie servers. RO2 has aussie servers (and I've even had some success playing on US servers).
Back to BF3. I guess I miss being able to see, identify and shoot targets more than 100 meters away over iron sights. It's definitely really slick, but I just prefer RO2 at the moment.