I have bought each game in this series from the original TOW to this and have to say it the most challenging tactical battle simulator that i've ever played. But once you learn wha tnot to do your heading in th eright direction. Flanking is the games secret and jus tlike in a real life battle its crucial to use or be elimenated. In Kursk 1943 you have a new mission generator and can even design your own campaigns by linking together a series of user made missions. You also have an improved multiplayer and skrimish mode with modes such as attack and defend and capture the flag that give this series a replay factor that was sorely missing from the original and TOW 2 Africa.

Theatre of War 2: Kursk is easily the best in the series (*note, i havent played theatre of war 3 yet) I recommend getting the full version, simply because it completely immerses you in combat; even on easy, you can be expected to have 40-50% casualties. 1C took the Theatre of war series to a new level by adding a more dynamic campaign, more missions, and they removed that stupid pause that plagued Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943. Bigger maps mean bigger battles and the constantly changing objectives and emergency targets makes for an awesome play!

Theatre of War: Kursk is the third title in the TOW series. It has many enhancements and improvements over the first two games, but still you need to turn down some of the graphic settings for it to run without a slow down in FPS. This is its only problem I found, that it suffers from lag and low frames.

Other than that, its a good challenging game, with improvements in the squad panel which allows you to rename units so much easier allowing you to follow their progress much better, and in some ways become attached to them and their fortunes in the campaign games. Also, there is a detailed armour penetration system, showing you where shells have ricocheted from, etc, similar to Achtung Panzer, but done in real time (which is probably why it such a system resource hog).

There are 9 missions for both Russian and German campaigns, a few more than TOW2, which is a blessing. Its hard too, and does provide a good challenge. There is a battle and mission editor, allowing you to create a series of missions to make into your own campaign game, allowing replayability.

Also, there is an expansion purchased from Battlefront called Caen which allows you to play from the British side in the battles around Normandy, which adds tons more value to the game. Good game.

I have bought each game in this series from the original TOW to this and have to say it the most challenging tactical battle simulator that i've ever played. But once you learn wha tnot to do your heading in th eright direction. Flanking is the games secret and jus tlike in a real life battle its crucial to use or be elimenated. In Kursk 1943 you have a new mission generator and can even design your own campaigns by linking together a series of user made missions. You also have an improved multiplayer and skrimish mode with modes such as attack and defend and capture the flag that give this series a replay factor that was sorely missing from the original and TOW 2 Africa.