A watered-down version of EE2 with an attempt at Warcraft 3 flair makes for a great disappointment overall.
The box art of EE3 betrays the actual game graphics and mechanics. The realistic and dramatic box art hides the cartoonish and overexaggerated unit and building models in the game. Very little strategy is involved in the actual gameplay as well; a trained ape could easily take the place of the stern-faced strategist on the game box's front and win battles.
The "witty" quipes of various units, much like those of Warcraft 3's units when you click on them enough, are cute at first but get old VERy quickly. You can't help but roll your eyes and think "Wow, another attempt to rip off Blizzard." The differences, though, are that the Warcraft 3 lines were actually humorous and only occured when you purposely clicked the unit multiple times in a row, while the EE3 lines are fairly lame and almost unavoidable.
The game quickly leaves you expecting more, but there is no more to it. It's too over-simplified to have any real replay value. Too few playable factions, units, technological improvements, buildings, resources, and customization options makes the experience lacking.
It is obvious that EE3 is meant to have mass appeal that goes beyond RTS fanatics. What the developers failed to address, though, was the fact that most people who purchased EE3 were RTS gurus who played through EE2 as well as several other RTS games while waiting for EE3. While I cannot speak for other RTS players out there, I can safely say that I was expecting so much more and am very disappointed.
This game should have not been sold as the sequel to EE2, but rather a dumbed-down spinoff of the Empire Earth series.