Pros

- The deepest and most tactical RTS game I’ve ever played, and I’ve played more than my share of the genre.
- Veteran strategy gamers who don’t see Command & Conquer as the be all and end all of the genre will find a real challenge here.
- The realism and attention to detail can really suck you in, and results in a very visceral combat experience.
- The game forces you to step up to each new challenge and overcome it using cunning and wits, rather than the usual formulaic way of playing strategy games of massing a big army first and rushing the enemy.
- Concentrating on infantry tactics, with diminished use of tanks and a complete exclusion of naval and air warfare has resulted in much more focused and precise gameplay.
- The best looking strategy game I’ve played in years.
- Will run on most modern computer systems without any issues, thanks to the solid and stable game engine, the culmination of 3 years of constant refinement.
- Online play doesn’t suffer from a lot of lag issues and works pretty smoothly even on my infamously unreliable connection.

Cons

- The difficulty will scare the crap out of most casual players, or those whose only exposure to the genre has been the endless parade of Command & Conquer clones. Though this is a good thing really, and only a con for those it applies to.
- Very occasionally the friendly AI can be a bit stupid, with your units not doing quite what you wanted and getting killed in the process.
- Random matchmaking online is a scary place, thanks to the exclusionary core of dedicated fans of the series, who will annihilate you without pausing to give new players a second thought.
- It can be a bit awkward when games last half the day between evenly matched opponents if one of them only speaks English and the other only speaks German or Russian.
- DRM on the retail release requires you to connect to the internet to activate.

Summary

I honestly think that this game is one of the best strategy games in years. The level of detail, the range of tactical options, and the absolute requirement for players to think intelligently about what they are doing and to constantly adapt to shifting conditions and situations all make it stand out over most other games in the genre.

Casual players or those who see Command & Conquer or Starcraft as deep and challenging examples of the genre will have a massive shock when playing this however, so I’d only recommend the game to people willing to master what is probably the steepest learning curve of any game I’ve played, irrespective of genre. The game does need patience, and you have to be able to sink a lot of time into it too, as occasionally the pace of battle is slowed by supplies running out, and on average each single player skirmish can last up to six or seven hours.

This game can be savagely hard. I played the tutorial mission on the highest difficulty setting to see what would happen, and had my entire platoon wiped out in just under a minute after they landed on the beach. That’s just crazy, for one thing I’m no stranger to these games, but the game makes no apologies for it; rather, it sticks up two fingers and tells you to come on if you’re hard enough, and I fucking respect that. There’s no dumbing down here, you have to meet it on its own terms, and you have to applaud the developers for their integrity in sticking to that.

Men of War: Assault Squad is a very fine game, and will reward those who can take it on and meet its challenges without shying away with a deep and fulfilling strategy experience.