I'm still a bit ambivalent about the second half of the film. My recollection of the excellent first half is vivid, unlike the second half. It's certainly a more ambitious film than Platoon. Stone's focus was narrow: what 'Nam was like from a soldier's p.o.v. I think Stone succeeds in that the visuals convey the fear, disorientation, confusion and frustration reported by veterans of this war.
To be fair, I haven't seen either film in over a decade. My experience indicates that, while Kubrick's films improve as they age, Stone's depreciate some.