Delta Green is designed to solve a problem that crops up in Call of Cthulhu, namely, the feeling that one small group of people seems to be continually stumbling into supernatural situations when no one else is. I think of it as the Scooby-Doo dilemma. What Delta Green does is to create a campaign in which the participants are assumed to be law enforcement officers. In this way, they have a source of replacement investigators and also a source of new adventures without the "stumbling onto" problem.
On the other hand, it's my sense that Delta Green loses the "isolation" of a standard CoC campaign, the feeling of being alone against the forces of the "Outer Monstrosities" as Hodgson called them prior to Lovecraft.
I'm still considering how to meld certain of the dynamics and ideas in the two settings to get the best of both worlds ...
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This is why I prefer CoC in the 20's. The modern stuff tends to end up with an X-Files kind of feel, while the 20's seem to evoke more of that Lovecraft tale aura. Curiously near and far-future CoC can end up being more like this 20's Feel I enjoy so much. Ridley Scott's Alien is a damn near perfect way to run a Future CoC game. A handful of characters trapped on this ship deep in space with little firepower and no way to escape. It is easier to isolate characters in the early 20th century and in the future - and I belive isolation is a key component of horror gaming.
The best way to run Modern CoC I think would be something like the movie The Ring. A few people by happenstance come across an amazing videotape, followed by a very strange phone call. After some investigation a horrible tale begins to unfold that the characters must uncover to save their own souls from a nasty end.
As far as avoiding the "Scooby Doo dilemma", make sure the campaign's Mythos activity is somehow related from scenario to scenario, so the players feel like they are uncovering something hidden from most but not all. Recurring NPCs that also have an interest in the Mythos can break this Scooby Doo feel. My current Spawn of Azathoth campaign, which is entering its six month of gameply, features a Jesuit Priest who knows much of the Mythos thanks to the Book of Eibon, and a pair of Russian Astronomers who've already encountered many Mythos-like things and have a copy of Mysteries of the Wyrm. The investigators have made allies with all three in their current investigation, as they try to uncover a great mystery that threatens Time and Space itself!
Riffing on what cthulhu joe said, I think this is where the looong scenarios shine. Spawn of Azathoth, Masks of Nyarlathotep and Beyond the Mountains of Madness being the ones I know of. These should all give you months and months of play w/o having to come up with new hooks. I think this is the way to design your own adventures as well. Also, again I suggest Cthulhu 2000 for modern day ideas.
Funnily, for over a year now, I've been toying with the idea of a Scooby Doo-like adventure. Only it wouldn't be confined to Scooby Doo. Players get to pick exactly which of their favorite TV characters to play. Think of the '70s movie Murder By Death. I think it would be great fun, for a short adventure, to have Fat Albert, Gilligan, Columbo and Karl Kolchak fightin' the mythos. ;-)
I'll have to check out Cthulhu 2000 - hadn't seen that out there.
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