R.U.S.E. might be the best RTS released this year, and it is certainly the most original.

What I do know is that it's fun, and while the multiplayer is unlikely to pull a huge crowd away from StarCraft II, it's absolutely worth a look for any RTS fan who has a friend to play with.

Compelling, slick, handsome. The predictable campaign and so-so skirmish AI are mere flesh wounds.

With a much lower pace than its competitors, in favor of its truly strategic (rather than tactical) approach, R.U.S.E. provides large-scale battles filled with subtlety, twists, and finesse, for its solo adventure and multiplayer alike. Its system of ruses, most notably, is absolutely brilliant for building up effective attack and defense strategies, especially when you're able to keep most of your real intentions concealed up to the very last minute. It's a game one needs to approach from afar, with the intelligence of a general, and a real soft gem in a world of brutish RTS games. It's a really different alternative to StarCraft II that really deserves attention, if only to discover another way to wage war.

But if you stick with Ruse in spite of these things, and if you can talk some of your friends into playing from time to time, you're going to discover a thrilling new real time strategy game that belongs in the same category as EndWar, Brutal Legend, and Darwinia.

A perverse dichotomy; RUSE either goes too far, or not far enough.

Its creative "evil mastermind" plans are undone by dull pacing, too smart AI and enormous maps. Don't be fooled. R.U.S.E. has some good ideas under its hood, but it's overrun by smart AI and bad battle pacing.