How valuable is playing commercial video games to increasing strategic, operational and tactical decision making skills?

It is difficult to ascertain the value of a video game.

When combat patrol training is conducted soldiers deal with the rigor of their equipment and loss of mobility, etc. Add in a dash of in climate weather, no showers, hunger/thirst, and the urgency of decision making and attention to detail.

They cannot compare in that regard.

I've played Call of Duty, Battlefield and many other FPS video games. These are largely used for distractions and entertainment. When attempting to communicate with a squad or platoon sized element, majority of players are completely removed from a team oriented objective - they are looking for their next achievement or to simply troll someone.

Even if you put two military platoons squared off against one another with VOIP - the field of view eliminates peripherals and other important factors that matter in the battlefield. They could do bounding over watch and other movement techniques, they could fire their weapons the way they are trained to in the game, etc. It wouldn't have the same effect as putting two platoon in a small forested area with miles and/or air soft weapons and having them engage one another. They have full control over their environment, creating ranger graves, foxholes, ambushes, traps, etc. Video games offer no such tactical advantage. Furthermore, I've tried to coordinate L shaped ambushes and other things in the game - but due to the individualistic style majority of players use - someone is always watching so the ambush will largely fail every time.

I will say, that you can improve IN game in how you make decisions, based on knowledge of map layouts, player observations and other factors, such as knowing how weapons fire - but largely that decision making stays in game. I think when the physical and emotional factors that come into play when boots are on the ground under the pressure to succeed with full equipment load in completely unknown terrain - everything changes.

My two cents.

I tried the Army's games once that were part of mobilization for 11Bs . They were bad, slow and we gained nothing from them. They didn't fit to current battle fields like the terrain in Afghanistan for example and specially parts like RC EAST and or NORTH.  Also I find that current games are kind of realistic but not really. They are too fast paced and they don't represent the reality. I say this based on my experience as an 11B with two combat tours in Afghanistan.

I believe they CAN be.. but it would depend on the 'game'. When it comes down to it, where is the dividing line between a 'game' and a 'simulation'. As technology improves, that line become more and more blurred. Simulators have been proven to be effective (think aviation - although those are an extreme example) and are being utilized in more varied applications every year. I saw an article the other day where surgeons are using simulators prior to an actual surgery.. pretty high tech stuff there, and the reviews have been outstanding.
Many of the current games are good for developing strategy and reaction time and I suspect that as the games and input devices become even more realistic the difference between game and simulations will become even smaller.