He conquers who endures
So let's just get the dull stuff done and over with.
Graphics: Fairly decent for a modern game. The landscapes aren't exiting per se but they are up to par and do their job quite well. Combat is done fairly well with projectiles and lasers and whatnot and the buildings and units are rendered fairly well. Due to the high system requirements and the fact that you'll be zoomed out a lot I don't feel that the graphics play a huge part.
Sound: The sound is decent for a game of this caliber. Units explode and make the apropos firing sounds. The voice acting is also fairly decent. The music is fairly generic but nothing memorable. Overall it does its job.
Premise: Among all of my strategy games (me being the strategy nut that I am) I actually consider this one of the games that comes close to describing aspects of modern warfare that most RTS games just ignore. Not insulting classics like Red Alert or Warcraft much but there is nothing in those games that cannot be solved by quick fingers or brute force. Just simply the massive scale of this game brings in a new wrinkle in terms of strategic maneuvering, feints, and base defense that bunkers and photon cannons just can't match.
Gameplay: One of the most memorable moments of this game for me was when my secondary base was attacked by a group of bombers who flew over a bunch of mountains and noticed the weak spot in my base where they wiped out a power plant. The aspect of having exploitable back doors in bases and the ability of the AI to use them to their advantage is something very refreshing rather than the usual rush your horde against the enemy castle or bombard it from afar. On top of that the scale lends itself to things like intelligence and counter-intelligence with the use of radar and radar jamming to hide your movements. As well as using various strategic pieces like the experimental units to turn the tide of a battle makes this game interesting once you get past T1.
Tilt: At first I had to say I was unimpressed. The campaign mission was seemingly boring. The same usual, send in the soldiers and watch them pound the enemy into oblivion. The game truly shines when all of the options are brought to the table. Should I use land units and go with a frontal attack to be met with an equal force, or do I go for the air strike and face hordes of anti-air defense. Should I build that huge kick ass experimental unit or should I build a swarm of tanks. Choices can make or break a battle and the emphasis on unit combinations and intelligence gathering to make those choices (this starts becoming more apparent after the first mission) makes this game exciting and rewarding to play.
Overall this game is an exiting new addition to the RTS genre with some good new twists and an impressive range of options and tides you over quite well for some of the heavy hitters like RA3 which will come out soon. Overall I give this an 8.8 out of 10 tactical missiles.