Star Wars: Empire At War has the formula in hand, but the company's still scratchin' it's head.
However, this combination is easily arguable as a mistake or a blessing in disguise.
Star Wars: Empire At War is an entertaining game, but can get old rather quickly (depending on how long you play it at any given time). Be on your toes newbies to the RTS genre, Star Wars: Empire At War can get pretty complicated. Though, if you've played other RTS games before this one, you shouldn't have a problem. Star Wars: Empire At War features a handy tutorial mode that'll set you out on missions while explaining how the game works. It covers everything from land battles to space battles.
This is the very thing that seperates Star Wars: Empire At War from other RTS games. The space battles featured in Star Wars: Empire At War are well thought out and play really well.
We just wish we could say the same for land battles. This is where Star Wars: Empire At War screwed up. No matter the game mode, land battles leave no creativity for the player to experiment with. Bases can't be made the way you want them to be, structures can't be moved from place to place, and you can't construct new bases elsewhere on the map. Instead, Star Wars: Empire At War leaves you with Reinforcement Points, randomly placed pads that look a lot like Command Posts from Star Wars: Battlefront, that you can use to deploy troops and vehicles. You must think before you act though, because you're only allowed so many units at one time.
The best part of the game must be the Galatic Conquest mode, where you fight your opponent for control over the galaxy by obtaining planets one by one.
This is long enough I figure, but there's much more to cover. To be fair overall though, Star Wars: Empire At War is a classic in the making. We'll just have to give it time. If you love Star Wars, like myself, then you'll enjoy this game. If you're a hardcore RTS fan with no life that needs a RTS game to staisfy you every minute of every day, then look else where.