Horrible AI and lack of opponents online spoil an otherwise-fun game.
Risk: Factions' eponymous gimmick has no real effect on gameplay, but it does make the battles more interesting to watch. There is something endlessly entertaining, to me at least, about Yetis taking over the world; don't ask me why. Unlike other versions of Risk there is no option to skip watching the battles, but it isn't a horrible slowdown and can be overlooked.
The objectives and their rewards are swiped straight from the 2008 edition of Risk. For those unfamiliar, it's a bit like having missions in the classic Risk, except you can perform more than one and get rewards for doing so. These rewards include "two extra armies per turn," "starting maneuver," and my personal favorite, "guaranteed card," in addition to several dealing with the dice. The exact objectives that need fulfilling can differ from the original, though, in that the game includes a few such as, "control x number of crypts/radars" or "mine x minerals." Eliminating a player will also count toward your objective pool, and like any Risk game you get their cards when you do so. As with the board game, you can play world domination, where the objectives and rewards are just there to help speed you along, or command room, where three objectives win you the game. There is, of course, an option to play classic Risk, where none of these exist.
Unlike other electronic versions I've seen so far, Risk: Factions includes map features in modes other than classic. Some of these, like cities and each player's capitol, are again ripped from the board game. Others, like crypts and barracks, offer you control over some special ability once you control enough of them. Some of these abilities, like flooding the dam or controlling the missile, offer interesting challenges to those regions of the map. Others, like the temple (well, just the temple really), are downright game breaking; the temple lets you convert any territory and its armies to your side, which makes hoarding objectives and rewards all the easier, and overall global conquest far too easy.
The major problem with the singleplayer game is that the AI is monumentally retarded. It is so bad that you can actually pin most of its moves down to a science: if its advance would leave a territory exposed, it will always leave at least three armies behind of possible. It's somewhat more intelligent in its maneuvering phase, but it doesn't make up for the fact that when the AI is attacking, you don't need to be worried about recuperating from a sweeping advance. The AI also doesn't prioritize map features correctly, being more concerned with achieving the remaining objectives than, say, bum-rushing your temple to keep you from rolling over the map. The only way for it to remotely challenge you is to play command room on a map other than the ones with a temple in them.
All of this could be rectified by just playing multiplayer. The problem? On all the fifty times I've looked (yes, I counted) there were no players besides myself online. That's right: nada, zilcho, bubkiss. Now believe me, I've played plenty of games that just have a small crowd, but I am not exaggerating here: there was no one to be found. This, predictably, renders many of the Steam achievements moot as they can only be accomplished with a sufficient multiplayer crowd of, wait for it, five people!
To conclude, Risk: Factions is a perfectly playable game let down by a bad AI and a currently non-existent multiplayer community to make up for it. I give it a 6.5 out of 10.