Gaming magic for an old, jaded gamer...but just a few minor quibbles
Back in the day, I was a Total Annihilation addict for ~6 months, and you can tell right away that Supreme Commander & Forged Alliance are from the same mold. That's a GOOD thing. I had forgotten how the Commander unit creates such interesting possibilities for creative game play. You can build anywhere, so you're not locked in to a "main" base. In fact, the very nature of the resource allocation and mission parameters means you need to stay mobile and flexible.
This makes Forged Alliance much more interesting and challenging than Command & Conquer 3, which seems like a silly, one-dimensional cartoon in comparison.
The scale of this game is truly jaw-dropping. When playing single-player missions, the map expands after completing objectives to add new objectives, and expands again, and again...! Of course, you need to have a bleeding-edge system to run this the way it should be run (and fortunately I do). Forged Alliance is programmed to take advantage of Dual and Quad Core processors, and you will appreciate the difference it makes.
Each single-player mission takes hours to complete (or at least it does for me), and I can't wait to dive into the multiplayer. Have to develop more tactics first!
I have just a few minor complaints, or suggestions for improvement: the game needs variable weather (it's always clear and sunny), day and night (it's always day), mountains/hills that are traversible by at least some land units (right now they basical act like walls), and deformable terrain. This last one is a biggie, actually, because it's a little absurd that no craters are created, and no hills are levelled, by the obscene amount of firepower that goes off.