I guess we read the sources differently. If the British and French had sat on their hands the general view is that Hitler's next target (around 1942 as you say) would have been Russia. Certainly what we actually know of his intentions supports that proposition. Once he had that squared away there's every likeliood that he would have 'settled affairs' with France, and probably in very short order. The CORE chains do provide for the first part of this sequence (war with USSR following conquest of Poland) but not the second, at least as far as I'm aware. That, however, isn't really a problem because the Western allies are almost bound to come in sometime after a DoW on Russia (German belligerence would be astronomical).
Failing that scenario there's the alternative of a Russian DoW on Germany. Without checking the files I can't say whether CORE has scripted for this, but the broader mechanics make that increasingly likely as the game progresses - not everything has to be done via event.
All the action you'd ever want is there - it just unfolds over a slower (and in my view more realistic) time frame. I get that one can become very frustrated by the anti-climax of the big bang not coming on cue, but that's what can happen if you permit 'realistic' variation from historical events.
It doesn't really work that well without surrender events and the like, which SMEP does quite well for all kinds of possibilities. I wasn't really having a go at CORE though, more at the way both paradox and some mods tend to leave open 'Paths' that just stop dead. 'Broader mechanics' mainly work based on Belligerence - for the AI USSR to DOW on Germany I have a fairly strong inclination that Germany would need to have been at war to get it's belligerence up(especially with Adolf adding it automatically while at war), so if Germany chickened out at Danzig or war, or prior, then nothing much would happen.
My background is only really a pretty broad undergrad elective and various random reading, but the basis of me saying that is:
-The Moltov Ribbentrop pact changing the game where previously there'd been a reasonable level of Franco-Soviet cooperation. After the dismemberment of Poland IRL Soviet-Anglo/French relations were severely strained, the allies had drawn up plans to bomb the Baku oil refineries and the like. The level of distrust is pretty damn apparent when you consider the Soviets ignoring British warnings of Barbarossa(as well as those from their own people).
-Long run re-armament plans, notably Plan Z, being geared toward at war with the west. That isn't to say they didn't expect to fight the Soviets too.
-The danger that fighting the Soviet Union without dealing with Britain and France would leave Germany heavily exposed, not even so much to invasion, but to a mere embargo or blockade. Romania remained in Frances orbit, so when it came to resources like oil the Allies would have Germany by the proverbial balls. On the other hand, maintaining the facade of neutrality toward the Soviet Union meant Germany could get oil and rares (well, Manganese) as well as food. (mainly thinking of the 1940 German–Soviet Commercial Agreement). Obviously if we're talking about 1942 or so Germany would be able to prepare well, but they'd nevertheless be crazy to rely on the acquiescence Britain and France for critical materials, in which case at the very least they'd need to have Romania into their sphere of influence or occupy it,(remembering that Bulgarian, Hungarian and Soviet annexations wouldn't have happened) which in and of itself could lead to a war with France.
After the fall of France Germany quickly conquered or otherwise gained access to the resources from pretty much the whole of mainland Europe, as well as hundreds of thousands of troops from fellow co-belligerants. It's a bit of an open question IMO whether or not they could have done this peacefully with France still a power to be reckoned with. At the very least there would have been further Munich style brinkmanship over Romania, if not an outright invasion. This is why IMO allowing for alt history choices requires coding alt history results.
(Some aspects have some 20:20 hindsight of course - we know that the Soviet Union was relatively formidable whereas after the Winter War few at the time did, whereas few at the time expected France to go down the way it did.)
