Not even. I play BF2142 on a 1800+ with a 7600 and a gig of RAM. I have no complaints in smaller games. Theres some lag in full 48/60 player games but nothing intolerable.
I've been playing for 2 weeks and I've noticed the following.
Regarding the balance question, I would say that the game is very well balanced. Its definately a rock paper scissors scenario. The RDX mines really atren't too bad as long as pay attnetion and have a support guy in your squad to pick up the cloakers you should be all set. Oh, and I am totally a cloaker terrorist, lol. I totally feel the feeling of pure glee when I RDX a silo and get to blow up a whole squad who come for the cap. Almost as good as cloaking, creeping up to sniper and knifing him. ;-) Ofcourse, more often than not, I miss with the knife and they kill me. But, when I don''t F it up, I love it lol.
Most of the time air is underused and improperly used. Most people can't fly to save their lives. I have, however, seen people dominate the game with an attack chopper. Some fellow name CrazEsquirrel or something like that single handedly defeat my team 2 days ago. We were playing titan and had the other sides shield down when ours was still at 50%. It should have been a sure win, but this fellow was phenomenol in the chopper. Every time we tried to land a transport on their titan, he eradicated our chopper before it even got close. Try podding in from an APC. The second we landed, boom, dead.
So while we were dieing to him in mass, they took over all the silos, hopped on our titan and game over.
Unfortunately, we were all noobs and couldn't shoot him out of the sky.
Anywho, I go under Bonger_Jr in the game.