All Battlefield games until now have been online only, with this being one of the first that tried to have a story (and a good one I personally think)to provide something for the 1% of people who don't play online. I've prestiged many times in CoDs and yet I still play Bad Company online more than any other game because of the vehicles, the unique Gold Rush mode, destructible environments, and so on. Not to dig at you mate, but what you've written above is basically a review of a tiny side ...
Hardly, and we'll see what the Frostbite 2 engine can do when Bad Company 2 is released, and whether it'll be better than Red Faction Guerrila. How you can call it a gimmick is beyond me, it's like calling the blood in Afro Samurai a gimmick, or the reflection on the cars in the PGR games. They're all key components that make up a greater whole.