I still think Counter Strike has the best recoil system, I don't know if its the most realistic, but I'd attribute CS's longevity due to its learning curve (the recoil being a HUGE factor of that). I used to be very skilled in CS (CAL-Main back in the 1.6 days when CAL-M meant something) and I used to spend hours spraying walls studying bullet patterns and recoil compensation.

The old counterstrike with the set recoil pattern was definitely one of the first that made it possible to learn to control your recoil. However I think that making the gun actually move is a more natural way to showcase recoil (and looks more cool as well).

This way people are easier able to see their gun actually moving around and automatically adapt against it with their mouse, making it take the same skill to learn to suppress the recoil. But in a more intuitive way, that every noob will actually find out. In CS you really have to know that the pattern are the same or notice it while playing before you can use it effectively.

The one thing that makes TWI games shine is exactly the gun handling in first person of both killingfloor and red orchestra.

lol I remember doing this...not for hours, but still had those moments with: "ok this gun's bullet pattern moves up and to the left..." and so on haha.

CS definitely had a cool and unique way to handle recoil that wasn't bad. Each gun had it's own characteristic too which let a lot of people pick different favorite guns based on the way they fired and how well they were able to handle them individually. I always found that most CoD guns fired exactly the same for recoil, but with different amounts of flash, accuracy, and bullet damage.

I think the guns should all have their own characteristics for recoil in every game and I would like to believe that a game that looks as fantastic visually as BF3 will, they would put some time into learning about each gun in the game and how it fires in respect to accuracy, recoil, and sound. Shooting my own guns has taught me that you can shoot 1000 rounds through your gun, know it inside and out, and know exactly how it handles, then pick up another gun that's even the same caliber and have to completely re-teach yourself how to shoot it...it gets easier and faster the more guns you shoot, but every weapon has its own personality, good or bad, and even video games should show that

...especially if they are trying to be even mildly realistic.