I bought this today and after a 12gb download played 5 games against the ai. Did not win 1 but drew 1
The game is really good, similar to war game but much slower paced. You can actually watch and enjoy the battles. You can also increase speed or reduce if need be.
The battle is is split into 3 phases, a, b and c.
Phase A is like the scout phase, so you have access to light units and aircraft and the idea is to rush forward, there are no zones to capture as such but you can see the frontline moving in front of your lead units, the more you occupy, the more reinforcement points you get.
Most maps have two or 3 reinforcement points for ground troops and two for airforce.
Phase b and c is where you can bring more heavy troops and vehicles in, at the start of each phase you reinforcement points increase.
You cant see any health bars on the units, just a moral bar. Conscripts will pull back and be easily suppressed allowing you to force them to surrender if surrounded, elites fight to the death.
When you unload troops from non fighting vehicles the vehicles disappear, fighting transports hang around though.
When you bring on a At gun it gets towed by a jeep, when you deploy the jeep disappears but if you have a fighting transport transport nearby you can connect it up again and fast move it. The gun can also be slowly pushed around.
Tank combat is great, you knock out drivers, tracks, explode the ammo rack etc, very similar to old close combat series.
Air combat is good too, the fighters dog fight a lot, sometimes last about 2 mins before one gets shot down. Nothing like bringing a mustang into strafe conscript infantry and at guns.
Artillery is similar to wargame, however I believe you can call in off screen artillery but I have not seen this yet.
You get two maps with beta, one with a town and industrial area, another with load of hedgerows. Maps are fair bit smaller than wargame but still big enough to enjoy.
You have 4 decks to play with, allies are a us armoured division and a British infantry division. The Germans have a SS Divison and airborne division. Lots and lots of historic units there.
The only downside I can see so far is the graphics are not amazing but the game is good fun and challeging against the Ai, multiplayer will no doubt be good too.
If you liked wargame series, company of heroes or close combat series / combat mission games then you will most likely enjoy this game, it's certainly worth to try it.
