I used to love 5.11 shirts...

PRO:

the pockets are great...

CONS:

heinously expensive

and THEY DON'T FIT!!!  The brand caters to law enforcement and their shirts are cut for barrel-chested types wearing body armor.  I used to be able to cope with the weird cut by getting the more expensive "medium-tall" versions of the shirts, but those are now discontinued.  Now the sleeves on medium shirts are too short and the sleeves on large shirts fit me, but the body of the shirt either requires me to become fat or wear body armor underneath...maybe both.

MY SHIRT-SHOPPING JOURNEY:

personally, I like big velcro-closure pockets so I don't have to mess around with buttons and the pocket contents don't spill when I bend over...  I discovered this when I bought a few cotton long sleeve shirts from REI, and I was terribly disappointed when I wore them out completely and found that REI no longer bothered with cotton shirts...all synthetic stuff, that keeps you cool or dries out quickly if you're drenched while hiking in a rainstorm.  Besides missing the comfort of cotton, I found that Velcro and lighter polyester blends like coolmax aren't such a good match:  as the velcro starts to wear out, the hooks come undone in the laundry and start hooking and pulling at the shirt fabric, so go with heavier fabric blends and/or pay careful attention to the design in case you need to replace the worn-out velcro.  It's a pity that replacing velcro isn't as simple as sewing a button back on.  Also, brands like Columbia and other safari-style clothing makers tend to make a fetish of many little pockets (like for your compass) rather than big versatile pockets that can hold cellphones and wallets or passports comfortably...

MY BRIEF LOVE for 5.11:  I have a few short sleeve 5.11s that I like...  And I have one 5.11 long sleeve shirt that I haven't worn out yet, but now 5.11 is mostly dead to me because of sizing and price... (beware the gorilla-wearing-body-armor cut of the 5.11s)

RECOMMENDATION:

THE VERY BEST not-too-expensive, well-fitting, comfortable, durable, dirty-work-friendly, and velcro-pocketed long sleeve shirts that I've found are the FOM (freedom of movement) shirts from Duluth Trading Company.  If you can recommend any others that meet these criteria, please comment on my review.

UPDATE:

i haven't tried them yet, but other options with similar pockets (but i haven't yet tested their fit) seem to be "Woolrich Men's Elite Lightweight Operator Tactical Long Sleeve Shirt" and "Blackhawk Men's Long Sleeve Lightweight Tactical Shirt"....  more expensive than the duluth shirts, but they're on my shopping list now...