This is now my favorite. Company of Heroes was my favorite RTS but this blows it up like a Goliath.
Factors you can play are Japan, Russia, Commonwealth (British), Germany, USA.
Just like Company of Heroes there is cover you can build, use, and destroy. A nice addition, is the ability to hide in grass that actually conceals the unit. Think about placing a AT gun into a grassy patch to conceal it. This is not a conceal ability which makes it invisible, it is hidden by the grass which is graphically detailed enough to hide the AT gun.
Another nice touch is the visual range of a tank is not a perfect circle around it, the range is based on the open slits in the tank.
Machine guns tear through troops, punish you if you march into an open grassy patch. You need to apprise the terrain before attacking or you will get murdered.
For realism purposes, tanks are extremely powerful, but they consume fuel and are expensive. But if you charge forward with your tanks, infantry will them out with AT grenades and RPGs. And don't forget mines and AT guns. Light tanks often die on their first hit. Mediums can pop against a good hit but often survive 3 or so hits. The number of hits is all depending upon when the tank is hit, what distance from the rival tank, ammunition used, caliber, ect.
Although tanks are out of commission fairly easily, they can be repaired in the field and this is not the C&C form of repair. It takes tons of time and individual parts get fixed one at a time. So you may get the gun working but the tread are still broke.
Also tanks can be recruits if the old crew die. HE rounds can also stun a tank, even though it does no damage.
One other note able difference is the game modes, you can do a capture control points game, defend/attack lines, coop campaign, lone sniper match (great fun on these huge maps). And you can turn of different types of units to remove things like artillery ect.
Just to expand on how much more there is to talk about, you can cook grenades for air burst or even as a suicide type mission.
There is so much more to share but for the bargain price of this game, try it for your self, or even just the demo.