It ain't revolution(gameplay-wise), but it should keep you entertained for hours.
Like I said this game isn't revolutionary (game play-wise its not, but story-wise it is), but it is one heck of a cool game. The new story isn't so good, but its rather interesting and the characters are cool. It starts off as a freak meteor accident destroys the world, then you as boy being rescued by Capt. O'Brian and help fight raiders and so on and so on. The campaign mode I must admit is easier then I thought it would be (apart from 4 missions)and most missions apart from a few are about capture the HQ, so not much variety however unlike previous AW there is no Hard campaign, no secret missions and it is linear, but then the game has these rather fun and sometimes really challenging trial maps (like war room maps) and the campaign maps are fun.
The graphics haven't changed much, still tiny sprites but darker, but I have no problem with that (Apart from the forests) and the zoom in feature makes units look cooler but more like toys. But the animations rock! Tanks still have over-sized cannons but who cares?
On sound, I must admit that the sound effects on map view haven't changed so expect recons sounding like toy cars, but in the animations, they are better, just hearing the sound of a tank engine and you know they're better and as for music its still the same old the song is modeled out of the CO and lasts 40 seconds, but it certainly is better then before all techno like (especially "Hope never dies").
Finally, the new toys to play with (and modification of older ones), almost all of them are cool except the missile-boat and the fighter (duster). The bike, the anti tanks, which are really cool and can really teach any tank a lesson indirectly and directly. The battleships with a smaller range now while standing can move and indirectly fire making you realize it was necessary to remove some of its range and finally the carriers are now truly portable airports which are able to produce ship-planes.
The CO system has a great new change which I don't need to explain and I'm liking it because it really makes you feel more involved added with the level up system however the abilities are more generic(as in only atk and dfn up) and some of the powers are very weak. Multiplayer wise, you could complain about 108*10 maps but if you play with friend codes you can chose any size but still 2 players, however if u think about it, this does make multi battles more playable, instead of long and boring.Still, clans wouldn't be a bad thing.
The game however has taken out many cool things which I would like to come back in a sequel, these include the Battle maps (I know why they took it out, but can't they return it in some way) survival, and also a hard campaign because this one is easy. There are only 2 technology sprites, I know they don't affect game play but it would be cool if next time each army had its own and COs didn't feel very important because you can't choose them in the campaign. The game also doesn't add that much new and European names are weird but the aggressive AI and balancing overall makes battles more fun, so you might want to look this up.