Altough its still far from good, this is at least decent, and is History Channel gaming at its best.
The Good:
The game innovates in its background. No ww2, its the US Civil War, an almost unexplored location in fps world, full of new possibilities.
One of the consequences of the different timeline are the weapons. Its cool to fight with Henry rifles, those old front loaded muskets, cannons, gatling guns, and swords, specially the swords. Its fun to go around running and killing people with your sword. The weapons are realistic too, and there are lots of them.
You play as both the south and the north wich is somewhat fun because it adds some more variety to the game.
The Bad:
It's ugly. I'm not saying a game must be beatiful , but in a such saturated genre as shooter, this is a decisive factor, specially in a year you got some beatiful games, such as Gears of War, Call Of Duty 3 and Rainbow SIx Vegas.
Civil War is short, it features only 12 missions, 6 for each side. But theres something that makes the game last longer: the lack of checkpoints. You have to be very carefull, like a tactical shooter, cause if you make a mistake and die, its all the way back... it's boring.
Well, when a game is ugly you at least expect it to have a good frame rate, right? Not in this case. the frame rate is very unstable sometimes, causing you to die and... go back all the way.
Your friends are useless, they do absolutely nothing, and sometimes even reveal your position, causing you to take a cannon ball on your face or get crushed by a gatling and you... go back all the way. Yeah, the lack of checkpoints can cause some large problems.
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At the end, this is better then other History Channel games and a decent game. If you like history or want to see an non-fiction fps thats outside ww2, its worth a rent, but save your cash for better things.