For a game that focused on style over substance, the end product is a gem.
Right of the bat, nobody has made an evil genius RTS, ever. World War II? - done, future? - done, conquering ancient civilizations? - done, torturing agents who are stealing your loot? - I don't think so...
The graphics, when maxed out, although are not Half-Life 2 or Doom 3, are respectable in the sense that they look good enough to eat. The floors reflect every action and every object in your base. The shadows inside are cast from ceiling lights and outside, the shadows react dynamically to the time of day. The particle effects such as sparks, smoke, or explosions are also very good looking, and although bad in the game, very apealing.
The music score is reminiscent of old Bond flicks and all those corny spy films. The sound effects are classy and well crafted and each of your minions speaks in Sim's style jibberish.
The gameplay is what has my vote. You start with about 250,000 dollars and a mountain. You must carve your way into the mountain building rooms like barracks, control rooms, power supply stations, and armories to support your growing evilness. As you do this, you gain access to a World Map in which you commit Act's of Infamy which gain notoriety which attracts more minions to your cause. This is the true replayability factor, you can learn from your mistakes and make a better base each time you play.
The one thing I have a gripe with is the stability. Without the patch, I expierenced crashes or even slow downs that slowed the game so much I wish it crashed instead. After the patch, I had the occasional corruption of the game in which a button or action would link a crash. The only way to solve this was to run my computers msconfig and turn off all background apps before playing. After this it worked fine, but that is severe just for good gameplay.