Ace Combat 8 Steam reviewers are steaming mad about its pre-order bonus not being a standalone app

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is technically out on Thursday, but as is commonplace now folks who pre-order the $90 deluxe edition get to hop into the cockpit a few days early. Anyone who pre-orders the $70 standard edition, meanwhile, gets a pretty sweet bonus: Ace Combat Zero, a 2006 entry in the series that has never been on PC before now. But how Bandai Namco has packaged Zero is now threatening to drag the new game's Steam review average down into Mixed territory.

Of the nearly 1,000 negative reviews as of this writing, there's a spread of complaints—performance, multiplayer connectivity, weightier flight physics, lacking HOTAS support—but one of the most common refrains is that the Zero bonus has been something of a bait-and-switch. As summarized by reviewer Akion:

"Before I bought the game the description said this about the Belkan War DLC Half the reason I got the game was because that is my all time fav. …