This is a pretty good list that balances how fun the game is with complexity and popularity. I've played all the games except Star Wars and War of the Ring, and I liked them all (except maybe Gaia Project, because I like Terra Mystica more).
Of course there are a lot of war games that are more complicated, but I can't think of any war game that's more complicated, more popular, and more fun than the games on the list.
I don't know the author of the article, so, for all I know, they might have just searched for the top complicated games on BGG, but the result is a pretty good list.
I kinda like that the Alien ripoff game is better than the official Alien games (at least in my opinion).