Graphics: Brothers in Arms looks decent, but shooters such as Call of Duty 4 and Gears of War have really raised the visual bar in the last few years. Brothers in Arms is built on the Unreal 3 engine (as is Gears, which seems to get better mileage out of it), but this tech starts to show its age here, featuring blocky models employed for household furnishings and some washed-out textures. One thing the engine does very well is render faces. Brothers puts a great deal of emphasis on its mature and emotional storyline, so it’s imperative that the characters look human and, for the most part, the visuals in the cut scenes and the character animations sell the illusion. Many of the battles are fought in the Dutch countryside, and the engine re-creates this wide-open farmland with lush detail. But when the battle eventually moves to the various towns and battered cityscapes, there are a few too many cookie-cutter houses. Smoke and particle effects are passable, but after seeing the mammoth explosions in last summer’s Bad Company, the pyrotechnics in this title are a little lacking. Brothers is a good-looking game, but not as cutting edge as it would have been a couple of years back.

Interface: One issue I have had in the past with squad-based games is that the control schemes tend to be a little too complex. This is a problem common to Tom Clancy games of the past. Gamers want to control all facets of their squads, yet with a finite number of buttons on a console controller, the real estate can grow pretty tight. I think Gearbox did a good job of mapping these controls, giving the player quick and easy access to their soldiers and their actions, as well as three different squads. After completing a short tutorial, switching between units becomes second nature. The controls are similar to those of most modern console shooters, so veterans of other titles should pick them up with ease. The only issue I had was with the limited vehicle sequences; driving that tank is a chore.

Gameplay: Having grown tired of the same old single-player assault through a raging World War II battlefront, my weary soul was cheered by the squad-based tactics of Hell’s Highway. It’s not enough to just shuttle from Point A to Point B as Nazis pour forth from hidden “monster closets” and trigger choke points (an infraction that even bedevils the vaunted Call of Duty series). The focus on strategic gameplay—with the player encouraged to study the surroundings, identify primary suppression spots and design ancillary flanking maneuvers—adds a great deal to this game’s appeal. I know it’s a refinement of a design used throughout the series, but so far it hasn’t gotten old; there’s always some new challenge to overcome and a new approach for victory to devise. This game does a fantastic job of letting you switch from grunt to field general, and when you finally push past a trouble spot, you gain a great sense of satisfaction from having fine-tuned a winning strategy. To that end, no battle seemed small or insignificant, and I was engaged the whole way through.

Multiplayer: These days it seems every first-person shooter ships with online multiplayer, but that doesn’t mean they should. Gamers typically pick one or two favorite online games and skip the rest, preferring to wage war in Halo or Call of Duty until their sequels ship, so developers should rethink their approaches and resources when designing multiplayer. If it’s going to be included, its game plan (and its feature set) should be aimed at toppling the king of the hill. That’s the problem with Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway. It succeeds on the strength of its single-player campaign, but multiplayer is bland and completely devoid of multiple maps or game types, and it isn’t worthy of your attention. Unfortunately, this feature is just another bullet point on the back of the box.

Sound FX: The sound effects left me slightly deflated. The guns and explosions were a bit underwhelming and sounded tinny to my ears. The voice work, on the other hand, is top notch. While the voice-over cast is staffed largely with unknowns (the biggest name is Dale Dye, a frequent military advisor on these projects), they really sell their characters and add a great deal of emotion, humor, fear and fearlessness to their portrayals.

Music: If you’re developing a World War II-based shooter, you’d better secure a full orchestra for the soundtrack. The trend started with Michael Giacchino’s expert score for the original Medal of Honor, and Brothers in Arms heeds the call and offers some dramatic music, featuring mournful, evocative melodies that underscore the game’s mature storyline. I’ve often felt that this series of games owes its greatest debt to HBO’s masterful miniseries “Band of Brothers.” Hell’s Highway really solidifies that connection with a score that pays tribute to the show, much as the game’s story echoes the series’ narrative.

Intelligence: This was a tough one to call. At first, the artificial intelligence reacted swiftly to my actions, immediately diving for cover the second my squad made its intentions known, but after a few skirmishes, it became clear that the scripting was fairly obvious. The bad guys could hide all day until I successfully flanked them. I was also surprised to see that the enemies would rarely hunt for me, deciding instead to hide behind cover and fire on my position until I died or found a way around them. They would only actively engage me if they encountered me on their scripted travels to new cover.

Difficulty: Assuming you embrace the squad tactics and don’t try to go this one alone, Brothers in Arms is an entertaining but slightly underwhelming challenge. The game is not that difficult once you realize the key to victory is the proper deployment of your support, followed by the execution of flanking maneuvers. Defeat usually only came when I was careless or grew impatient and tried to rush an enemy entrenchment on my own. If you play the game the way it was designed to be played, you’ll find a nice workout for your brain that won’t overtax you or cause collateral damage in shattered controllers.

Overall: Brothers in Arms offers enough different and compelling gameplay to demand your time. The deft melding of traditional World War II-flavored shooter action with more cerebral, squad-based tactics provides a solid campaign that retains your interest the whole way through. While the game doesn’t offer the greatest online experience, I think there is still a market for solid single-player campaigns, especially when they are this engaging. I was surprised by the deep and involving storyline; however, I think newcomers might be left scratching their heads about a narrative that recalls so many characters and events from prior entries in the series. Eventually, the story threads do come together, possibly prompting gamers to seek out the other titles in the series. This is a quality cinematic experience that is well worth signing up for one more tour of duty.