Men of War, I can't believe I haven't already talked about it Options

[Blade]

I've realized that I haven't talked about this game yet. Too bad I'm doing it after it was cheap on Steam...

Anyway, Men of War is a tactical game (with some strategy, but it stays on the battlefield level). It's real time but it's still very tactical and challenging (far more than most RTS out there) but it's also a lot of fun.
It's set in WW2 with a Russian, a German and an American campaigns. The missions cover a large range of situations from the 4 men commando infiltrating a base to the hundered men and tanks defending a city.

The interface is a bit difficult and overwhelming at first but it's quick to learn (it's not a hard-core strategy game aimed at experts). The complexity is actually because of the details the game goes into. For example each soldier has his own inventory, when their helmet gets hit by a shot, it falls down and they have to pick it back up (or to take one on/near a dead body, or to risk getting killed by the next headshot). You can sometimes find fuel canister that you can use to improvise a trap (or just a big explosion) and so on.

It's one of those games where you have fun even when you lose after a one hour session and you can replay a mission and have it go completely differently from the last time and most of the time. And most of the time, you get a battle full of events that epic war stories are made of, like how a tank got his turret destroyed by a hit and sped through the defenses so that the crew was able to get hold of a machinegun behind the enemy lines or how a single soldier wiped out all the remaining enemies in a base all by himself after the rest of the attacking force had been destroyed...

Sure, it's not completely perfect, the voice acting is lame (it sounds like it has been recorded by the development team with a cheap mic... which is probably the case), the interface could be a little better and even if the IA is correct most of the time it also has some strange reactions (especially at close range: the enemies will take cover around your moving tank or run in front of your men without anyone shooting at anyone else), morale isn't handled and even though the soldiers can stand their ground correctly when left alone (they'll even push a little forward sometimes) they won't pick up ammo on their own when they're out, which can get frustrating.

So if you like tactical games, be sure to try it. The steam sale is probably over by now but it has already been discounted several times and I guess it won't take long before there's another one (on Steam or somewhere else).

[Blade]

It looks like it's actually still on sale for cheap (3,24€) on Steam!