What you really want are the three expansions Semper Fi, For the Motherland and Their Finest Hour as they are essential to make the base game playable and are required to run pretty much every mod. Playing the game without them is, honestly, pointless. However, they are bundled with a bunch of cosmetic packs, probably to drive the price up. Thing is, you most likely will end up not using any of the said cosmetics packs as playing with counters is just better and more fluid/. If you are using sprites you cant see the chain of command at a glance on the map, but have to check each individual unit. As setting up a proper chain of command is a big part of planning any operation , sprites make a trivial task a chore. The music packs are decent, but again something you can go without. All in all, HoI 3 is a great game, easily the best in the series, and can provide hundreds if not thousands of hours of gameplay due to its multitude of options and great variety of mods ( Black ICE is a personal favorite) . However, having the essential expansions bundled with a bunch of things you don't need is not a good deal.
