It's not a game it's a battlefield simulator, and a pretty good one.
When you start a game you have a stategic map in which you play in turns.
When you encounter an Enemy a real-time battle kicks in. But first things first. In the game's story the Cuban missile crisis (a real event in history) of 1962 in which Soviet nukes were positioned on Cuba didn't end as peacefully as it did in the real world. Following a nuclear war you can choose to play 4 factions which fight for the remaining clean land and water:
Soviets, USA-UK alianse,China and the Franko-German alianse. With the start of the campgain you get a strategic map in which you have: Your own units which you can manage and buy new equipment for them. Enemy units. Your objectives which are bassicly major battle locations that you will have to fight and finally the industrial installations. Those are important as each captured installation (be it an airfield without which you won't have air support, or an oil reifinery) give you the resources you need to keep fighting.
So you point and click and move your units trough those installations and skirmishes with the enemy to your final objective on the strategic map. There are about 5-6 strategic maps for each side, but sometimes they are pretty similar so you can fight for different sides on the same battle in some cases. And now to the battles themselfs. There are about 200 auntchentic units representing each side in the war. What's remarkable about them is their realism. Artillery really do have a long distance, Infantry is crushed by tanks unlsess they are dug in with AT weapons and then the tanks are the ones left burning. Suplly units and trucks help you to keep your vechicles fueled and ammo loaded and your troops can heal with the medical trucks. Air units ranging from bombers to transport helicopters and gunships can be called in if you bought them on the strategic map and are controllable while in flight. Tanks battles are great with turrets flying off the tanks and burning vechicles left afterwards. You also have infantry scout units which do their role well unless an enemy scout unit detects them and then it's pretty ugly. When it comse to tactics, that's when you'll realise why war is considered a bad thing. It's very easy to be ambushed by superior enemy but the trick is to see them before they see you and hit them hard from a safe distance. Only when their guns and artillery are gone do you have a chance of attaking in the "classic" way successfully but watch for enemy armour flanking you. If you can clear out the AA units, you'll learn that your air support can do magic on the field. Especially attack planes who eat tanks and everything else for breakfeast.
To summ it up that's how a real war is fought . No exagarated explosions and graphics, some nice music in the background and the harsh reality of a superior enemy around every corner, and the AI is superior here. As I wrote in the beginning this product is about realism not hollywood. So good luck general.. just make it out alive.