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I'm not too good at writing reviews so this will likely be fairly scattered, but for all of the content it offers for such a low price, I felt I had to reccomend this game.

It's more in-depth than I expected with beautiful graphics (the little details like the men and flags are a bit of a miss but that's the only thing that really glares at me).

There is no online multiplayer unfortunately, but even the single-player offers quite a challenge. There are several quick-play missions, and you can also set-up your own. In addition, there is a campaign for both the Royal Navy as well as the Kriegsmarine.

All of the ships and weapons handle very differently and require a great amount of skill to use effectively. I thought aircraft carriers in particular, while amazingly effective ships, were quite hard to use (especially trying to dive bomb submarines with depth charges). You will definetly NEED to play the tutorials and practice handling the various ships, aircraft, and their armaments.

I'm really looking forward to what more these devs can bring to the table and would love to see a Pacific expansion with the Imperial Japanese Navy and United States Navy.

I'd love to reccomend this game, because the gameplay seems spot-on. Unfortunately, getting GFWL to work on Windows 10 is a hassle enough as is, but pairing that with audio issues once in-game no matter what settings I put the game on killed it for me. I'd love to see this game re-done or a sequel made though. If you're still on Windows 7, you might want to give it a try (I heard Windows 7 users don't have nearly as much of a problem with this game), since you can refund it anyways if things awry.

Had a surprising amount of fun with this game the short time I've played it. Highly recommended for anyone wanting some WWII naval combat action. The graphics aren't particularly pretty, but the gameplay is fantastic.

I feel the UI for managing your ships' officers could use a bit of work though, but aside from that, all of the other issues I've had with the game have been niggling at worst.

There's a huge amount of ships to choose from, and judging from the patch notes, they're continuing to add more. Furthermore, all of the ships seem to be relatively balanced in the sense that DDs don't feel inferior or superior to BBs since they serve a different tactical function. Also, in combat with each other, torpedoes hurt... a lot.

Although I haven't played much, the matchmaking system seems really good. As opposed to players being divided purely by ELO, they're divided by ship classes. So, both sides will have the same number of DDs, SSs, CVs, etc... which makes a HUGE difference given that every ship class has its own inherent strengths and weaknesses (you will never have the horrible fate of a full team of SSs vs BBs/CVs).

All in all I'm glad I found out about this game and am looking forward to seeing it get updated.

EDIT: Can't tell if the community is just dead or if the matchmaking is just wonky lately, but there seems to be some odd matchmaking setups i.e. 3 SS + 1 CV, 4BB, 1CL + 2SS. As a result, the game isn't quite as fun as it could be. Honestly I wouldn't mind being placed against ships of a much higher tier at this point if it means more ship diversity (especially considering the timeline of WW2, such engagements did happen). I'd prefer both tier and ship class to be taken into account with matchmaking if they do that though. So, for example, not only are there 3 DDs, 1 CA, 1CV, 2BB on each side, but also 1 Tier 2, 3 Tier 3s, 2 Tier 4s, and 1 Tier 5

Having finally gotten over the steep learning curve (made a lot faster by watching Michael Broschek's tutorials), I can say this game is a lot easier than it looks at first glance. Similar to Dwarf Fortress, when I first started playing, it looked to be an impermeable mess of menus and overcomplicated gibberish, but once you finally dove in (perhaps after watching a let's play or the tutorials as I mentioned above), everything slowly pieces itself together.

The first game you play, you can expect to make a TON of mistakes, but after your first playthrough, everything should start becoming more natural to you, and you'll improve with every subsequent playthrough (learning where to focus first, what your strategy should be, how to actually use the AI for handling theatres, and so on).

For anyone who is looking for a very in-depth grand strategy experience, I'd say look no further than Hearts of Iron 3 (although I do suggest you try out Paraodox's easier grand strategy games like Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings 2 to acclimate yourself to the engine). Every country in the world that exists during this time period is playable (although good luck as El Salvador...), and you aren't limited to just the major powers.

However, if you do pick up Hearts of Iron 3, I highly suggest getting all of the expansions with it, as well as using large address aware (LAA) on the game's .exe (the lack of LAA practically broke the game on my system).

Way better than I imagined. This + work + final exams week = no sleep QQ
I'm definetly going to pick up the rest of the games in this series.

Fun JRPG with a combat system that reminded me a bit of Paper Mario.