First of all, let me apologize for the virulence of my review. I try to be as fair as possible, but I honestly think that Chaos Earth is one of the most slip-shod, poorly-designed RPGs I've ever seen. Please don't take my white hot fury as an excuse to write similar reviews on a regular basis, however
I agree with Spriggan, really. Take Beyond the Supernatural (or any horror game, really) and play it that way. Drop the gung-ho military stuff and keep it simple. A game where you play as yourself (or a similar everyman) trying to survive the apocalypse would be fascinating; set it in your home town, grab a local map from the travel bureau, and start blowing stuff up with a big red marker. The characters have to find food and water, track down their friends and family, try to find out what's happening in other parts of the country, fight off looters, etc. I still like the supernatural, Rifts-y elements, but they'd be so much more effective if you weren't trained to combat them--what better way to emphasize the sudden appearance of demons in the modern world than to face them as inexperienced schlubs?
The key feature, I suppose, is that this setting should go in one of two directions: 1) a slow spiral toward decay, with lots of despair and horror, or 2) a situation that turns average nobodies into heroes. Palladium's version of the game didn't do either one.