Yeah, always forget about Crookz!

Yeah, YouTube videos are already posting gameplay of the first levels. Visually it's a minor improvement IMHO but there are some gameplay tweaks that look good.

BTW...

Desperados III releases sometime next year. It was supposed to be out end of 2019 but was held back for a better release schedule (not quality related)

Something that adds a lot to these games are indoor locations. Which is why to me at least:
Commandos 1 < Desperados 1 < Commandos 2

Haven't played any of the other games (except Commandos 3 which I'd rather forget about)

Best one is Shadow Tactics, no doubt about that.
Desperados (first one) is very good too, and has been my favourite until Shadow Tactics release. I did not try Desperados 2.

I never really spent a lot of time on Commandos, mostly due to the setting not being one that I would like to play in.

Lastly, don’t forget about Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood, by the same team than Desperados. This one is supposed to be the easy one, but I’ve not played it for long enough to have any idea about how good it might be.

It's actually Shadow Tactics that got me to post this thread. I found the game on PS4 for $5 and thought it was a lot of fun. That got me to looking again at Commandos 2... which I played a bit of on PS2 when it released...

... and wondering what was the best of that style of stealth game from people with more experience in the genre. It seemed that this was primarily between Commandos and Desperados.

Just because people mentioned them...

Chicago 1930
Commandos
Commandos II
Commandos III
Crookz
Desperados
Desperadoes II
Helldorado
Robin Hood Legend of Sherwood
Shadow Tactics Blades of the Shogun

Without a doubt Commandos 2 is my favorite. And it is even better if you have a friend to play co-op with (Note: It won't have co-op in the remaster). It has a nice balance of difficultly, not to hard, not to easy. And keeps things interesting with many different locations.

The next best would be Shadow Tactics.
It's a little on the easy side, but it also has a unique setting that sets it apart from everything else in the genre.

After that my list would go something like this:
Commandos BEL - Great game, highly recommended. But it is the oldest one, so expect it to be a little clunky at times. "Frantic clicking" would only happen if you set off the alarm.

Robin Hood - Sword fighting! This one's a little different, you have a base camp (Sherwood forest) in between missions. You have a bit more freedom to select who you'd like to bring along. Also you use the mouse to control the sword, it's not too hard, but if you don't like frantic clicking, you might not like frantic sliding.

Desperado - I haven't played very far into this yet, but so far it's pretty good.

Commandos BTCOD - This game has the best menu music of them all. It's also just mean, that is, the difficulty is off the charts and not in a good way.

Commandos 3 - It seems like it'd be good, but it isn't. I'm not even sure I can explain why.

Star Trek Away Team - Be sure to set phasers to stun. I've only played the demo, and it wasn't spectacular. Everything seemed stiff, and the screen movement was sluggish. I'll eventually give it another shot though.

I haven't played any of the other Desperado games or Crookz. And I've only briefly looked at Chicago 1930, from what I've seen it looks like it'd be good.
Another one that is a bit obscure is Beyond the Law: The Third Wave, I don't know much about it.
There's one more, but I can't recall the name of it right now.

Also there's a Russian made game called Partisans that's supposed to be in the works.

Main criticism seems to be the missions with time limits, and they can indeed be pretty annoying. The game also feels pretty small, more like an expansion pack to Commandos 2 than a stand-alone game.
It's certainly the weakest part of the Commandos series, though I still had some fun with it.

Have to disagree somewhat about Commandos 2, imo it's too easy, doesn't help either that characters are more interchangeable than in Commandos 1. There are also some gameplay issues that are pretty immersion-killing, e.g. it's bizarre you can lure guards over huge distances with cigarette packs when they can't see your crouched commandos at the same distance.
Behind enemy lines and Beyond the call of duty are my favorites, but of course that's a matter of taste, Commandos games are all quite good compared to most other games imo.

Main problem for me was the very notable decrease in the size and complexity of levels. This was reflected in a lower max resolution (1280x1080 in C2 but only 800x600 in C3) I'm guessing to make it less obvious how much smaller the levels had become. Also, you'd be hard pressed to find an indoor location that wasn't fully modeled in C2, compared to C3 which had several doors that served no purpose.
The singular snowy Berlin level is an exception however, but doesn't matter because it has an annoying time limit so you can't really enjoy the level.

The number of commandos you take on missions were also massively reduced compared to C2. I once calculated it for both games, and C3 iirc had at least 1 less commando per mission on average. I mean, one of the staple commandos, Fins (the marine) only appears in one level!

Apart from the improved graphics and animations (which were admittedly pretty) it just felt like a downgrade from C2.

I've only played Commandos 3 once, so I may be mistaken, but iirc the time limit in that level (is it the one where you have to kill a general?) is only triggered, if you take certain actions, before that you can take as much time as you want.
There was a lot of really annoying design in Commandos 3 though, in some levels it's not even clear at the start that there's a time limit, it just suddenly pops up.
Agree with the rest of your points too, definitely felt like a downgrade in many ways. I still got some fun out of it though.

There is some overlap. The most egregious is Lupin. He's just a weaker version on Tiny that doesn't carry a knife. That isn't really a problem though, and if you're playing co-op it can be very beneficial. The cigarette thing isn't immersion killing at all for me. Clearly the guards are looking for cigarettes and not commandos :)

I didn't find Commandos 1 to be all that much harder than 2. But BTCOD is like the vertigo expansion for Descent, it's just hard for the sake of being hard.

Like you said though, it's a matter of taste.

In Commandos 2 all characters (except the thief iirc) can knock out enemies and carry bodies, that makes things a lot easier imo than in Commandos 1.
I also didn't like how you were rewarded in the after-mission screen for not killing enemies, made no sense imo.
I did like some of the added variety of Commandos 2 though, the far eastern settings were interesting.

You have to admit, not being able to knock someone out and carry them is pretty weak for a commando. It does make more sense for them to have it where they all can do it. Unless my memory is failing me, I'm pretty sure the thief can knock them out too. He just isn't able to carry them.

I'd wager it was designed this way so that co-op would work better. And so you could choose to complete the mission without relying in Tiny so much.

I don't really care one way or the other about the score. But that doesn't make much sense i suppose.