If I had human teammates to help me out against the Germans, it would have been a complete rout. My fear is that it would also have been too easy. In the places where I was micromanaging the battles, my troops were carving the AI apart, and it's not hard to envision a team of human players breezing through the game without much trouble. Still, there's time for tuning.

It's easy to see the potential and pitfalls with a game like Assault Squad. Co-op is almost always fun, but the game needs to offer a worthy challenge to its players if it is to keep from becoming a grind. However, if the difficulty scales well, Assault Squad looks like it has some fantastic map design to keep things interesting. If the Japanese and Commonwealth factions manage to bring some new play styles to the table in addition to different terrain, Assault Squad could be the perfect game for both Men of War addicts and agnostics.

Questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you .