When I first reached mission 28, I was honestly quite excited when Dealer mentioned the approaching enemies. Finally, a proper massive furball, and with overwhelming odds stacked against me? Sign me the hell up! I've been waiting for this
And then the mission starts, and... it's a wall of bloody Tu-95s. Like I'm a damn German pilot in 1944 defending against and allied bombing raid. Shooting down flying bricks which can't defend themselves is not fun, especially on a mission twenty f-ing eight. There's a reason such missions are normally the TUTORIAL of AC series - so that newbies and game journalists could sink their teeth into something without being thrown to the wolves from the start.
I wanted a new "Cold War" from Project Wingman or even "Lighthouse" or SP Mission 01 from AC7. Nope, it's just a beefed up M01 of most AC-games.

Alright, I think to myself, maybe it's just prologue of sorts. Surely, things are gonna pick up. And they do! With MORE bombers, coming from more directions. And now, some of them are faster like Tu-160s and B-1s! Lovely, more flying defenceless bricks with faster speed and not even a rear gun. Plenty of Tu-95s still though. Someone should really put those relics to rest - their serial production started in 1955. It pushes a 100 years in a couple of decades. Most of playerbase's parents weren't yet born back then
You'd think the friends you made along the way would be able to handle such trivial targets? Nope, a flying brick is still too much for the AI pilots to reliably stop because of their gutted damage output
So you just fly around, shooting down objects only marginally more mobile than buildings, swatting down an occasional inept escort or 2 which have less combat presence than clouds, and your only real worry is that a red triangle gets to your blue square which even that isn't much of an issue, as ignoring some bombers (on Elite mind you) resulted in zero consequences. Bonus points: bombers were given engine lock-on points which further worsens already annoying target switch priority of the game. They also take SLIGHTLY more than 2 STDMs to take down, so multitasking with a gun isn't really worth the extra effort - you need to finish the job with an MG anyway, so might as well not bother with any missiles period
It's not like that flying apartment building is gonna dodge or anything

But then, finally, you get actual enemy hard-hitters to arrive like F-22s and F-35s! Yay! Only took them 20 minutes of uncontested slaughter of aircraft museum exhibits to throw something exciting my way and... you get like 5 minutes or so to play with them. Which MORE bombers might still show up to cause more annoying distractions from the tasty meat of the dogfighting.

And then, you get a boss fight against your rival and his team. Crimson 1 was tanky but at least he didn't have a missile disruption/reflection field. So, again, you gun the boss down, though this time at least he shoots back. Annoying mechanics aside, the guy didn't really have the charisma of Crimson 1 or even Mihaly, so his yapping sounded more like... cope! (ba-dum-ts). No really, he didn't seem very interesting tbh
What further spoiled the fight, and I know it's personal, is the realization that if I don't do well enough against the guy, I'd have to go through 20+ minutes of bomber shooting gallery AGAIN if I want my S-rank.
This mission promised overwhelming odds, but ended up far too relaxed and focused on feel-good friends reunion. Damn false advertising

So, alright. I can complain, but what about solutions? I'm glad you didn't ask!
1. Replace wave 1 of bombers with 3-5 airship things - those Arsenal Bird wannabes. Give them mid-tier escorts, like F-16s, Su-33s, Mirages, etc. Make the player sweat bullets under VLS and CIWS fire rather than leisurely eradicating hunks of outdated metal
2. Pincer attack brings in 2 more airships (1 from each side) accompanied by Su-52s, F-22s, and a few lower level aircraft with several F-35s, Su-25s, F-15Es, A-10s, Su-34s ground attackers. Give your airfield something to worry about. A couple of Tu-160s / B-1s would be fine here, too. It only makes sense to send in bombers AFTER you establish air superiority, not before
3. Enemy desperation sets in - their plans ain't working. Once the mercs arrive, the Sotoans send out their green pilots, some museum relic bombers, accompanied by vets/trainers in high-end aircraft. Give a couple of them FA-36s as well, but with actual skill to use them, and not Gemma
After part 3 is over, throw in the boss squadron. Maybe also cut down the overall duration by 5 minutes or so
This way, at least, you get your MASSIVE showdown, and all those friends joining would feel much more welcome