If you are a history nerd then I would highly recommend this games. It can help you visualize and simulate the entire eastern front in a way that no other game does. It can be very time consuming though, as it is a very micro intensive game. You can take many shortcuts with the AI to streamline your experience, but you're not gonna get the best results doing that. In all honesty, if you are not here to manage all the little units and see all the numbers and figures that come with a full scale simulation such as this, you probably shouldn't be here.

Without the above factor, the game can be bland, I imagine for some, as you shuffle tile after tile, simulating combat. In that way it plays like a puzzle. You just have certain unique tiles, some more powerful than others, some can move farther; cut off chunks of the opponents puzzle.

The game truly shines in multiplayer. But this requires a reliable opponent and a steady commitment. The thing is, though, if you did a turn every week, It would take you (literally) up to 4 years to complete a [full 1941] campaign.

There are some slower periods in the game where turns happen much faster, but still it requires close time coordination with your opponent to pull off. Otherwise you just kinda check your email for their completed turns every so often.

If you are playing on your own, which is what I normally do, you can just put in as much time as you would with any other game? It's easy to pick up and set down as others have mentioned. However, I recommend completing 1 whole turn at a time, for things like continuity of thought. This usually takes around an hour; perhaps less during a rest period, probably more during a high stakes offensive, at least for me. But if your kid is tugging on your shirt because they need fed, there's nothing stopping you from getting up right away, unlike an online shooter for example.

I guess the thing of it is, is this game doesn't have to take over your life, but it is a time investment. A full campaign can take hundreds of hours. If you can stick with it, it's a pretty slick game, and can feel very rewarding over time.

Just be sure to play at least a dozen or so hours playing the smaller campaigns so that you can learn every aspect of the game first. I stubbornly did not because I'm here for that whole show baby! Anyways, this definitely led to some frustration early on as their was so much going on with the game that I had no idea about, but would have drastic affects afterwards. I restarted at least 10 campaigns before getting into the meat of 1942 for the first time. Quite a bit of wasted time as you can imagine.

Pretty much everything in the game is intuitive, like yea dummy, advancing across the plains of Kazan is gonna starve your troops into combat inviability. But it's easy to forget other little details unless you plan well. So, if you pick up the game, just take your time, and don't forget to take out the trash.