[wytefang]

I'm not sure you played the same game I did, at least not graphically. Comparatively speaking the graphics were average to decent AT BEST. You mentioned not having seen better graphics in an RTS so you clearly haven't played Company of Heroes OR Supreme Commander (or Medieval 2, for that matter). If you're going to use strong hyperbole like this I'd suggest you make sure you've played other games in the genre because this simply isn't true.

Had you suggested that you enjoyed the art direction of C&C 3, I could understand but in no way is this game even remotely state-of-the-art, graphically speaking. The animations, in particular, pale before the glory of CoH or Medieval 2 and that's a telling blow for many gamers.

The other harsh strike against this latest iteration of a venerable series is that if offers nothing new and is merely a re-hashing of former gameplay with no real improvements to offer. In a gaming landscape that includes amazing physics effects that actually matter in gameplay (Company of Heroes) or super-slick interface improvements such as the unlimited and seemless zoom/scroll feature of SupCom, should gamers really be blowing their money on rehashed gameplay with good, not great, graphics? Not really.

Obviously people have a fondness for the series and in that regard no one could fault them for buying this latest C&C game or even fault them for enjoying it but pitching it as the best in any single category is disingenuous in the extreme - it's simply years behind the most current RTS's in nearly every category.

That's not to say that you wrote a badly written review - it was short, sweet, and well-worded but I had to take strong exceptions to your conclusions.