I did a lot of reading on this game before I decided to take the plunge. Like being a child out with friends saying "jump in the lake, it's not cold, it's not bad, the water is deep enough, we've all done it." Then jumping and slamming limbs outstretched into the mud hidden merely 1 foot below the drink with my body hairs sticking up in frozen horror as if attempting to launch off my body like small rockets all the while squealing "abandon ship!".

That is the experience any dawdler glancing over this game with some form of intrigue will go through after they throw down the cash and step into it. Gamersgate offers a variety of fine games, and I recommend spending elsewhere. It is not worth the special offer of around $7. No, more like $2.50 at best.

First of all, this game plays similar to many smart-phone app/free-flash strategy games out there. You have a map, you have your side, some troops, and basically fight it out. Forget all of the mumbo jumbo about this game being "complex" or having any depth. All that goes right out the window after the first turn and most of the world declares war on you. Yes, the AI HATES the Human player. This is a 100% bonafide certified fresh "Gang up on the Human" game. This game wins the MCP and Skynet's Seal of Approval. Like those free strategy games, you dump all of your money into building units, and then throw them at the computer, making sure not to thin out your forces.

That. Is. All. This. Is. Eventually after a billion turns you might achieve some sort of technical advancement that will pay off. But so will the computer so it's moot.

The AI/Diplomacy aspect is totally random. It's as if every turn the program rolls a dice to determine how many more AI controlled countries it will make declare war on you.

Combat gives you the option to fight it out hex-tile style. This is not bad, I like the graphics, the small touches. Where it is bad is the computer is a total cheater. The game reminds me a Shattered Union, which I totally trashed, because after testing that game I found the computer cheats big time. You always fight the computer with a handicap. Same with this game. If you put your tank against an equivalent enemy tank, you will lose no matter what you do. You need 2 tanks to defeat 1 tank.

Chances are, that 1 enemy tank will still at least take one of your tanks to hell with it.

If you use the "auto-resolve" it speeds up the game since the loading times are atrocious given the "behind-the times graphics". yes, the graphics are NOT THAT GREAT, they do the job but they are definitely sub-par.

Auto-Resolve should be renamed "surrender and die", because even if you have the enemy outnumbered 3-1 you can still lose ALL of your guys, and the Computer loses 0 (happens all the time with this feature).

Worse, they run horribly. My system is pretty tight and up high there on the power ladder.

This game is just poorly programmed, horribly not optimized, you have no ability to adjust the graphics except the resolution, or turn off weather (which is laughable to look at to see it raining 50,000 above the ground and rain disappearing at 40,000 feet), the water looks like toxic waste.

Back to combat, the computer also seems to know where your units are on the battle map. I had my units placed in one location and he knew to send his stuff right to that spot, and didn't even try to defend the strategic points. I placed an artillery unit at the end of the map. The computer magically knows it is there, and sends all of his tanks which blast it from afar. The artillery tank can fire "indirectly" at targets around 4-5 spaces away. Well, if you are the computer, you can fire that far with REGULAR tanks with direct-fire. Yes, who needs artillery when the standard tank can lob shells from one city to another? As soon as I saw this happened, that is when I was 90% close to giving up on this game.

I bought 2 tanks in one round only to have them not appear in the next. 2 rounds later, I was able to have them along with the 1 tank I bought in the preceding round. WHAT GIVES? It didn't matter. Egypt send in its magically massive army to wipe out my base. Despite the fact I should have lost the game, it still let me place the units and my tanks were slaughtered anyway by a combined force of enemy Infantry, a tank, an anti-aircraft unit.

I must conclude this is due to BUGS.

Another problem, is one turn an enemy has no units guarding territories. The next, he suddenly has several occupying them. How did he buy and deploy them so fast? I was steamrolling through his undefended lands before this.

Another problem, before going into combat, it says my force if 2 tanks, 1 anti-air, 2 infatry, 1 arty is going up against 2 Infantry, 1 anti-air tank, 1 engineer unit. I go into battle, instead, I am facing 2 enemy tanks (I double checked to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me), 1 anti-air, and about 4 Infantry (just from what I could see).

Again, the computer totally cheats. Totally bugged. The sluggish gameplay, inconsistent stats and figures, cheating AI, and masochistic "kill the human time!" flaws of the game totally kill it. This is utter bargain bin quality. It feels as if this game was made in someone's garage with only 30 days or less of development time, no QA. I've played free flash/strategy games that do more,work, don't cheat, are fun, and don't cost a thing.

In the game's defense, the idea is good and it wasn't that hard to understand the controls or how to do things. The game is rather simplified and didn't take me that long to figure out how it worked.

Awesome game, fun and with lots of details about modern warfare. The gameplay is quite simple, with the strategy map is just as deep as in medieval total war, and the tactical map reminds me of civilization V. Graphic is pleasing, with realistic battlefield effects and beautiful units model. Sound is ok, not much music in game, but the weapon firing effect is pretty good. The bad things are the lack of detail tutorial and help, some AI and gameplay bugs, and (in my opinion) the advanced soldier model is not as beautiful as it should be.

Hope that the developers will resume support for this very potential game soon.

This is a very good modern (near future) era strategy game. It has a learning curve, but nothing a few hours can't remedy. Its not really complicated, it just has allot of features and options that need to be learned. There is a free strategy guide/manual available, but even still some subtle things are not explained well enough. I spent a fair bit of time with trial and error, and searching forum posts to find answers to some gameplay issues. Once learned though all those options and features make for some grand game play.

The game features an overland campaign map, where you can conduct research, production, manage regions, move and manipulate units of all kinds. When a battle commences, the game moves into a battle map mode with terrain based on the region the event occurs, somewhat similar to the Total War series games. But like the campaign map, the battle map is turn based with the action taking place simultaneously between phases. Your units can perform some really neat actions depending what you deploy and what upgrades they have, like Helicopters can perform pop up attacks over obstructed terrain for example. Works very well and is quite engaging.

More war-game than a geo-political simulator, it still has extensive features for diplomacy, and espionage with the use of special forces and spies. They can be powerful tools when used to together with conventional forces. If you want to be a bad boy, theres a allot of chemical, biological and nuclear options available to you.

An added bonus feature is random event missions, which can range to anything from stopping bad press, or infiltrating enemy bases. It helps add to the already great atmosphere the game portrays in an economically torn near future Europe. The music and accent unit voices I thought were a nice touch adding to the overall mood. It has a sense of realism to it thats hard to pin down, but it presents itself very well.

Other than a lack of explanation of some game features, I can't think of any major negative issues to this game at this time. As of patch 3, the game is stable and what few bugs remain are very minor. But this game has the potential of going from very good to awesome with just a few more added goodies, most of which have already been suggested in the wish list on developers forums.

If your concerned about the DRM, third party software, it simply requires Steam be installed.

Multiplayer is great, it just doubles the fun teaming up with a friend. Developer seems to be good at supporting the title. I fully recommend this game to any war gamer, its a must have for his/her collection.