This is a very frustrating game that I really want to recommend but I cannot. Note this review applies only to the single player mode as I have no interest in the multiplayer option. At first glance, this appears to be a very promising WW2 strategy game, where you can fight portions of 1944 East Front battles as either the Germans or the Soviets. Orders of battle appear to be researched with great accuracy and the game's visual fidelity is excellent. However, you'll quickly discover this is more of an arcade game than a wargame. A few of the lowlights: every AFV has the same range for its main gun. The AI cheats in an almost comical manner, being able to call in artillery and air strikes with pinpoint accuracy as if it was getting live data from a satellite overhead. It makes up for this cheating with rank stupidity, like driving trucks full of infantry into AT/machine gun kill zones over and over again, leaving a trail of destroyed vehicles back to the edge of the map that the next wave of AI reinforcements will ignore. In nearly every battle you'll get to easily KO the AI's ammo resupply trucks as they follows a short way behind the AI's tanks like lost puppies. Air units are absurdly powerful, due to huge numbers of planes, short resupply times, and pinpoint bomb accuracy. Ground units move too quickly and combat is too fast paced (a regiment sized battle will take significantly less than an hour). There is a bizarre reinforcement point system - instead of being able to deploy your full force as you see fit, you must wait for points to accrue based on a timer, which you then spend on reinforcements. I understand this is for balance in multiplayer but it makes no sense in the single player game. Finally, there are far too few maps. Get ready to see the same 5-10 maps over and over and over again, no matter what scenario you are playing. Make no mistake - there is some popcorn fun to be had here, but don't pay full price.
