The graphics are beautiful. The concept is intense and enthralling. The suspense is unbearable. And no-one
It really shines in customization - although there aren't many gametypes per se, you can change how many territories each player gets, how many cities there are, the scoring system, even the fonts, colors, and shadings used by the game’s engine; modding, too, is fairly prevalent amongst the very strong and supportive community. You can play real-time, and have a game last a full day - should your boss show up, double-tap the Esc key, and DEFCON will vanish to the system tray, and will show you little alerts like "Enemy Subs Detected" or "Player 2 Launch", and doesn't bog your computer down while doing so. You can also play Speed DEFCON (by default, the game runs at the lowest speed setting requested by a player) where more often than not, the game runs at speed 4, and it's all over within minutes; the only real problem with Speed mode is that any AIs will have a serious advantage because they don't need to actually move and click a mouse, and are thereby capable of reacting to many things at once.
So sure, it's got its downsides - non-scalable AI opponents that, when they're not annihilating you, they're just plain boring to play against; a few graphical and even fewer gameplay exploits (which are so hard to pull off it's kind of a waste to try them, especially since a new patch is about to be released); and the occasional times of day and night where there's simply no-one playing. It’s also arguable that the game should have a campaign mode, although how this would work is beyond me.
However, you'll most likely forget about all of the shortcomings once you immerse yourself in the atmosphere Introversion's provided in this game's spartan style – somewhat along the lines of the Harpoon series, and frighteningly realistic; your aircraft must be fuel-managed, alliances can be broken from minute to minute, and missiles take agonizing minutes to fly. And, whereas most games would go for loud explosions, flashy mushroom clouds, grinding, militant music, and general cinematics, DEFCON stays low-key. You're a general in a hidden, safe bunker somewhere, a witness to the apocalypse, and the game keeps you that way - it’s the kind of “triumph” that doesn’t feel right; all you see is "Cairo hit, 7.6 million dead", and there's just a faint rumble as Cairo’s diamond on the map dissolves into a white glow. You feel detached from the deaths, so omniscient and above it all, that there’s no satisfaction here, but it's a necessity for your people to survive, and therein lies the game's motto - "It's global thermonuclear war, and nobody wins. But maybe, just maybe, you can lose the least." There's a haunting soundtrack arranged by Alistair Lindsay and Michael Maidment [both worked on Introversion's "Darwinia"] that manages to stay quiet and backstage, yet manages to be wholly frightening and epic; and as the missiles start arcing over the globe, you hear nothing but the submarines' sonar ringing, the hollow wind, and women and children pitifully drawing their last breaths as black rain falls from the sky. You're not sure you want to return fire anymore, but you have to if you want any of your people to survive, and that's the most eerie feeling of all - this is a game where satisfaction doesn't lie in retaliation. You might be psyched to get the missiles flying at first, but then you realize that the winning move – as in “Wargames” – is not to make a move at all.
It's an odd feeling, and you may shy away from the premise at first. I did, too, but this is the only game I’ve ever given a ten out of ten, and it’s because it doesn’t rely on visuals, stunning cutscenes, or dry gaming archetypes and the general hype thereof, but in teaching a lesson through its strange, detached style and gameplay – no-one really wins in nuclear war. So give DEFCON: Everybody Dies a try, and I guarantee you'll find it to be one of the most uniquely unsettling, yet tense and intriguing, gaming sensations ever.