This is the scale to which RTS games should aspire, build yourself a varied army and let the good times roll.
Far too many RTS games feel like squad-level engagements; you build your base, put a handful of buildings up - and then oops, it's time to invade! So you zerg the enemy while putting up defences to counter their zergs, and in the meantime slowly amass enough spare resources to finally build that huge squad to lay waste to everything.
Supreme Commander's maps, on the other hand, are epic in scale. Epic as in, each player can have up to 500 units. Five hundred. PER PLAYER. If that didn't hit you let it sink in for a bit. Many games have absolute caps for ALL players that are lower than 500.
Another huge feature is the camera zoom. Instead of being locked to a predetermined range of zoom, here in the Supreme Commander games you can zoom from right in front of a unit's face, all the way up to orbit so high that the main view is as zoomed out as the toggle-able minimap is. Smoothly. You read that right: smoothly. As in, no transitions. You can zoom as far out as you like, depending on how much of the whole map you wish to take in at once.
This vast real estate means you actually get to build armies, not just squads. You think that 20-unit of end-game units was a deal-breaker in [insert name of generic RTS here]? Well, here in Supreme Commander 20 units will likely be just another component of one of your armies. Armies. Plural. Nothing says curbstomp like a pincer attack with 100 tanks divided into 2-3 groups, complete with air cover and artillery support.
Supreme Commander's flagship Experimental Units are another sight to behold. There are endgame units, then there are ENDGAME units. These guys cost an arm and a leg, but each one of them is fully capable of duking it out with small armies nearly singlehandedly. And win. If you thought your 50 tank rush was badass, try not to be drinking when your army runs headlong into a Galactic Colossus. Experimental Units are oversized, overkill-type special units which are specifically designed to rouse that "oh my god we're going to die" feeling. The only thing worse than coming up against an experimental is: coming up against two of them. By the way, if you let your opponent(s) get that far, you're not going to have a good time...
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Granted, the game is not without flaws. Like the official review pointed out, nuclear weapons take an ungodly long time to build; in the meantime fielding a couple of experimentals would have been a more productive use of your time.
Daniel8888 goes overboard with his "you just need the massivest army ever" complaint, which although valid, is equally the fault of pretty much every other RTS out in the market - perhaps he should take those goggles off. Plus, it turns out that he's actually WRONG: in a long enough game, you can build up fairly modest defences that can actually stop most simplistic "moar tanks!!1!" armies. About the only massive unbeatable army in the game would be an army of experimentals, but if you give your opponent 3 hours, what do you expect? Your average 1.5 hour game is already deep into midgame by the 1 hour mark, if you screw around and let it drag twice as long then that's your fault, not the game's. And in PvP if you try to build up a bunch of experimentals, bet on everyone else ganging up on you and slaughtering you before you become a serious threat. Yeah, that's going to work realll good.
Daniel8888's other assertion that final-tier units render early game units useless is another valid but impractical point. Tier 1 units are solely early game rush/disposable defence. Count your blessings if you win a game using just these guys, but it's not going to happen. Tier 2 units are beefier and the workhorse of most armies, this is where the action is at. Tier 3 units are strong, yes, but they're not godly and a good selection of opposing tier 2 units can still crush them. Don't believe me? Fly your Tier 3 bombers over my base guarded by tier 1 and 2 flak guns, and let the good times roll. Hint: they won't.
In general, you CAN assume that tier X units are going to beat tier Y units for any given X>Y, but this problem exists in nearly every other RTS out there. Show me one that doesn't, and I'll show you a game that uses an even worse system: scissors beats paper beats rock. Also, the costs in Supreme Commander escalate quite fast: once you upgrade your factory, previous tier units become faster to produce. A tier 3 factory can pump out tier 1 units in literally seconds. Tier 3 units, however, easily take 1-2 minutes PER UNIT. So when you manage to amass that "huge" army of tier 3 units, you better pray the enemy doesn't have that approach you're taking well-defended. Don't believe me? Send your 50 tier 3 tanks against my base guarded by point defences and tier 2 artillery, and let the good times roll. Hint: they won't.
As I mentioned earlier: the only army big enough to ignore all opposition like in other RTS games has to be REALLY FECKING HUGE (like say 200+ units), but good luck building up that much in PvP before everyone else notices and quickly gangs up to take you out first. You'll succeed versus the AI, but the game is good enough (and AI mods have taken it further) that the AI can actually kick your ass before you get to this point too.
So basically Daniel8888's complaints are both worthless, equally applicable to pretty much any game in the genre, while Supreme Commander itself actually mitigates the worst of either point. This game isn't a dick-measuring contest, it's about fighting hard and fighting smart. Superficial casual players like him who are all about "haha I got 50 tanks" are going to get creamed by the pros, and he knows it too, given his final stereotypical "y'all gonna hate me for tellin' the truth" rant all nutcases spew. Right. Like some nobody who gave the only low score for a game is telling the truth. Which do you think is more likely to be correct, the dozens of reviews consistently giving a game 7+ scores, or the one lone voice in the wilderness giving it a 3? 3 is nigh unplayable by the way, so he's not even reviewing the game objectively; a playable game but a bad one rates at least a 5. So, this just doubly confirms the crazy. Don't listen to the crazy person, folks; it's contagious.
By the way, my score of 8? It's not a perfect game, obviously, and I wish there were way more maps than included originally (although the modding scene has been excellent for more), and I do find the subtle imbalances here and there somewhat off-putting. As a personal recommendation, check out the BlackOps family of mods (install all of them at once); they make for an unbeatable skirmish experience while not changing the game into something else entirely (like say a Star Wars themed mod would). It's basically playing SupComFA++.
One other VALID complaint not many reviews have pointed out is that the game is extremely demanding on hardware. Modders on the forums have also pointed out (and fixed) numerous inefficiencies in the game's various scripts. If you want to enjoy the game fully, make sure you grab both Duncane's AI fixes as well as Sorian's AI.
Since it's 2012 now the good news is your 1-2 year old computer should be good enough to handle this game at it's highest settings in all it's glory. Turn up everything to the max, and let the good times roll.