Right, now that I have played the first three missions of the campaign, I can give my educated opinion.
The gameplay is pretty good from what I've seen. Combat is ultimately much more in line with (though somewhat more detailed than most) regular RTS and RTT games than actual wargames, whatever the title might say. For example, destroying a vehicle still seems to be ultimately dependent on cumulative damage than true armour penetration, and infantry moves around and acts like a concentrated swarm and is therefore significantly easier to wipe out than they should be. The combat reminds me a bit of Company of Heroes', but at least the results make more sense, so it's not so bad. The increased importance of reconnaissance and supply is a nice addition that most RTS games largely ignore. Finally, there is thankfully none of R.U.S.E.'s special abilities and unrealistic base building.
The maps are quite big, which is good. Terrain is rather odd, though. Features like towns and forests seem more like just representations of the terrain they're on than real trees and buildings, which I guess is consistent with the RTS-like combat. Land is completely flat except for occasional elevation changes, which consists of pretty much identical slopes followed by more completely flat land. It seems a lot like the map of a boardgame converted into 3D graphics, in fact.
Actually, the map design and quite a few gameplay elements seems very reminiscent of LNL's World at War series (No, not
that one.
This one.). I wonder if any of the game designers played those.
The variety of units is very good, especially since it allows the inclusion of quite a number of units that are usually overlooked. However, there seems to be a complete lack of fixed winged aircraft, which I guess is made to either balance or simplify the game but really should have been included. Perhaps they're using
SPI NATO's reasoning for not including them.
Overall, I like it so far, certainly more than R.U.S.E.. I have yet to see how the multiplayer is, but I'll get around to doing that at some point.