In that case CoP is probably the better game, yeah.

Not really much "probable" about it. Better engine, more fleshed out mechanics, and less bullshit. A friend of mine still refuses to play any STALKER game because he tried Shoc and couldn't manage taking on the bandits in Sid's intro mission, because he, of course, chose "Master" difficulty right from the start, and was not expecting to be instantly shot down and killed when the first bandit saw him, and was definitely not expecting the pistol they give you to be so inaccurate and worthless at range, especially for body shots. COP doesn't remotely force new, inexperienced players into such predicaments, even on the hardest difficulty. You've maybe got some blind dogs running around if you're unlucky, but any challenging combat in the first few hours will give you time to properly prepare.

The problem was not so much the difficuly curve - my first playthrough (which stopped after about 3 hours) was on the hardest difficulty as well, and I managed. What was terrible was how inaccurate the player's weapons were and how accurate enemies were. With an AK-47 with a shortened barrel I could not hit any enemy more than about 20 meters away. Killing them required spending literally a hundred bullets or so, and bullets weighed a lot so it basically was impossible to properly fight enemies at a distance unless you had a sniper rifle or something. What was really annoying thoughw as that enemies were far more accurate. STALKER complete improved this, so that players were equally accurate as enemies, which is 100% less retarded.
Also, enemies could spot you from very far away, even when hiding behind bushes. Stalker Complete added all the required functionality and made the game more realistic and more fun and better looking. Which is a good thing. Without it the game was rather shit.

That said, I think CoP looks worse than SoC + stalker complete. It's technically more advanced, but it just looks a bit... unconvincing. Grass pops up only at short distances, and graphics quality at a distance isn't terribly good. And performance is pretty bad too, considering the graphics.

Shoc unmodded and COP unmodded are both pretty bland looking, and both are massively improved by mods.
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/54064 ... 81C3F648E/
This is with the mod "Misery", which itself uses a significantly tweaked Atmosfear 3.
http://atmosfear.crommcruac.com/call-of-pripyat/