I picked this up Wednesday. In the first few hours I played the Tutorial and the Training scenarios and started the Africa '41 scenario. The game seemed, well, interesting, but it didn't really grab me.
Then I tried my first random scenario and that was what made the game click for me. The game system is rather abstracted and it cannot be as exact a simulation of many WW2 battles and campaigns as are the games from HPS and others. TOAW3, for instance, really does a better job if you are looking for a gaming system that duplicates the historic situations as much as you can in a computer wargame.
Where the game really shines is in the way it can integrate research, production, supply and operations. And it really goes to town when you play a random scenario where you start off with just a few basic units researched and only one production center. You have to balance military expansion to build a formidable force with the need to send out speedy units to seize the neutral towns. Throw into that mix the need to research new unit types, produce political points to enable you to create HQs and Units (the containers that hold the sub-formations where the actual troops reside).
As the turns unfold, you explore the map. The map can be shrouded a la Civ so that you have to discover what the heck is even out there in the way of terrain, or you can just have fog of war so that all the terrain is visible but not the enemy. Or you can have a game where everything is visible to everyone.
When you start bumping into the enemy you might get a surprise, because perhaps he's researching and building types of units (actually called SFTypes, or sub-formation types) that you haven't bothered with. Imagine my surprise in one game when the AI suddenly started attacking with divebombers and I hadn't even bothered with any flight units or AAA.
Throw in engineers to build roads and bridges and other stuff, a whole naval aspect including surface ships and subs, aircraft carriers and troop transports, and did I mention there are paratroops and air supply? Sheesh, the whole supply infrastructure is really something too.
So, it there don't seem to be a lot of battles included, it's not a problem. Like winSPMBT/winSPWW2 and some other game systems, you might fine you have more fun just playing random encounters.
Did I mention that there can be up to nine sides (called regimes) in a game? There are.
Oh, and there is a full editor and lots of tutorials hosted over at the developer's site. And a quickly growing number of new scenarios. Cool.
I guess you can see I like the game. Honestly I wasn't sure I was going to, and this was kind of an impulse purchase for me, but I'm glad I did.