So, using the first level (ship) as a bench I'm getting 25-35 fps with a 2500k + 6970 2GB @high settings 1920x1080 with no motion blur or AA. Doesn't seem right. Also, I've noticed that staring at a wall will give me erratic results, sometimes 30 fps and sometimes 50+. I'm trying to find out if this is normal, an issue with my rig or unoptimized drivers (using 13.2 beta 6).

Can anyone with a 6970 let me know what you're getting? Use the first level and fraps please.

I'm using the same drivers as you and play at 1920x1080 with very high settings, 4xMSAA and Medium motion blur, yet only average about 35-40 FPS with a single 7970 in the first level. If i bump MSAA up to 8x then my FPS drops to around 25-30. I am using a i7-3820 @ 4.8Ghz, 16GB 1600 RAM, and crossfire 7970s @ 1050/1500 (but turn off CF for Crysis until better optimized). I have also found that switching between settings and trying all various forms of AA only changes FPS by 15-20, i.e. if I bump AA down to FXAA from MSAA, it only nets an additional 10fps or so. I actually got slighty better FPS in fraps with the 13.2 beta 5 drivers.

While i can't answer your question because i run on a 680, i'd assume your frames are right around where they should be for an older card. That being said, i think that first level is a pretty "worst case" benchmark, because all the rain and wind moving all the cloth box covers around, and then the lightning casting shadows everywhere are quite hard on your GPU and CPU. I finished the game, and am pretty sure that level was easily the hardest on my rig.

I have a 2700k and a 7850 (similar performance to the 6970) Don't bother with anything but all LOW, HIGH texture resolution and SMAA x1 @ 1080p.

Game still looks great like this and manages to stay north of 60fps 99.9% of the time. Adjust to medium and you'll get buried under 60 fps quite often.

ASUS Radeon HD 6970 DirectCU II I managed to overclock the core clock to 980 MHz from stock 890 MHz,
found it difficult to increase memory so left it alone at 4x1375MHz which is 5500MHz stock,
its now as fast as NVidia GTX580 according to 3DMark 11 over all score and beat the GTX 580 with the GPU score, so was happy.
If your interested in overclocking your GPU use Asus GPU Tweak.
With CCC remember to increase power control settings to +20%
also tick manual fan box,
GPU Tweak switch to advanced mode,
don't forget to set your Fan Speeds user define set up, also max out Power Target, also your GPU Voltage(mV) to max which is safe at 1.175. Drivers 13.2 Beta 6

It's perfectly normal. I have the same setup as you and i'm getting raqed by this game.

High is clearly too much for a 6970. What about Medium?