An interesting premise and a fun multiplayer keep this game a float. 7.4/10
Frontlines: Fuel of War has a great plot, because its quite believeable that something like this will eventually happen with all all the conflicts over oil. The game even opens with quotes from George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in which they talk about the inevitable oil crisis in the Middle East. It is the Western Coalition against the Russians and you are fighting for the oil fields in the Middle East. The single player game is quite short and also quite easy. I couldn't see myself playing through this game more than once, so it is a rental at best unless you really catch onto the multiplayer.
The multiplayer in this game is an intersting spin on Battlefield. You will be capturing command points just like in Battlefield, but in this game you slowly advance across the map and you can only capture command points that are on the frontlines. If you capture all the command points across one frontline than your frontline is expanded and you move on until you have captured the whole map. I actually prefer this over the Battlefield Modern Combat on the Xbox 360 because the games actually take a long time to finish and having to continue on capturing command points while holding the frontline (if you loose the frontline you can't capture anything beyond it) makes you feel more like you are in a war.
The graphics in Frontlines: Fuel of War are quite disappointing. This game had the potential to be one of the best looking games around. The firey oil fields could have looked amazing, but they do not. The game suffers from quite a bit of pop-up and I really feel like they went the cheap route and instead of having good looking flames shooting up from the fields, the game has decent at best looking flames and smoke particles that cheaply hide the crappy graphics. If they had taken their time with the graphics than this game could have looked amazing. Frontlines could have a lot better sound too, but they are a lot better than the graphics. The bullets and explosions all sound like they should but the voice overs are lacking and somewhat uninteresting make the cutscenes boring and easily ones that you can skip.
I honestly can say that I had a great time while I played Frontlines: Fuel of War and the multiplayer can keep it going for a long time. I would suggest renting this game first to make sure that you enjoy the multiplayer because there is not much reason to replay the single player after you play through it the first time, unless you much have all the achievements. I can honestly say that I enjoyed this game much more than Battlefield 2: Modern Combat and its a game that first person shooter fans should not miss. Rent it first to see if you enjoy it and then make your decision if it is worth a purchase.
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 7/10
Value: 8/10
Tilt: 8/10