The command and conquer series has always produced great games although some disliked the recent deviation from the classic C&C style that Generals took, to counter this C&C3 takes things back to the classic C&C formula that made the series such a success.
While there have been a few changes such as a new control scheme and interface (although it is a classic C&C sidebar layout) most things have returned such as the cheesy(but always great) videos between missions and of course the tiberium universe, familiar tactics are back such as the infamous tank rush and resource harassment however after a short time of play you will find ways to counter such tactics.
The single player campaign mode is possibly the weakest part of this game, the missions are the typical "destroy this" type of missions with little deviation however the multi-player is as always where this C&C shines, allowing for great development of tactics the longer you play can make for a satisfying game experience to outwit an opponent online, the game sports some new features to aid in the formulation of new tactics such as directional armour(vehicles have more armour on the front than the sides), reverse move (to prevent your units showing their vulnerable sides) and stances (such as aggressive and defensive) while these may seem to be small additions they can drastically change the balance of a battle when you play an opponent that ignores these features.
The game looks great for an RTS and runs well, I have tried this game on a few systems and it appears that it can scale to system performance well, once maxed out you can see the shining glints of light reflecting from tanks and beams of light break through the clouds and watching an airborne attack fly over the water is nice indeed.
The competitive aspect of game play depends heavily on how you play the game, there are 3 sides to choose from, the GDI: heavy but slow tanks that can cause large amounts of damage have support powers to mainly summon reinforcements to any known area of the map, allowing for you to call an attack force next to the enemy base while you send in a dummy attack from the front to draw troops, NOD: the underhanded faction that benefits from stealth and quick attacks to keep the enemy off balance have support powers that mostly encourage this type of play with abilities to cloak units for example and the scrin faction: the aliens that work well in groups with units that can be combined for extra effect are also best at collecting resources allowing for large armies, the 3 factions units play differently to one another however their main buildings are pretty much the same thing with a different skin, each needs a barracks, war factory, ore refinery and tech buildings even the same amount each the super weapons also cause comparable damage across the 3 factions, speaking of super weapons these devices such as the nuclear missile are a way of causing your enemy to leave their base and attack, however for the most part this game discourages players that play too defensively by providing tech buildings that are extremely beneficial to capture as an incentive to leave a bass and rather weak defensive structures.
when the game was first released it was horridly buggy, with frequent crashes and disconnects from online games and the game was also unbalanced, certain units too expensive and others not even worth buying, however now at patch 1.6 currently the bugs have been corrected and the game balanced, this game works well on XP and both Vista 32 bit and 64 (home premium and ultimate) and with an x1950 pro (just 256MB) and an E6700(2.67Ghz) this game runs perfectly on maximum graphics.