I only played bits and pieces of WC1 and 2 myself. A mission here or there when my brothers were playing through the campaign, and I happened to be visiting for Thanksgiving, etc. Privateer was the first one that I played all the way through, and it’s also my favorite. My brothers disdained WC3 and 4 when they came out, because we had the opinion at the time that all Full Motion Video games were crap, and it was a trend that we hoped would go away soon. It did go away, but after I played through WC: Prophecy and loved it, I actually went back and played through WC3 and 4 and found them to be great games. The FMV didn’t hurt them in any way, and it only helped in telling the story.
Privateer 2 was crap as a Privateer game, but as a random linear adventure game starring Clive Owen which happened to have a space sim portion, it wasn’t bad. I played through it and was mostly disappointed that it wasn’t like the original Privateer. But looking back, if I’d judged it as just “The Darkening”, I would probably have had a positive impression.