Short version: it’s good, very good. But it doesn’t do much that’s unique.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the AGEOD American Civil War game. The Grigsby effort does some things better (command structure is a bit easier/more intuitive than the AGEOD), but the AGEOD game is just so visually charming, it’s pleasant to play. The Grigsby game is functional but looks, well, ugly.

Now, as a veteran hex wargamer I’m supposed to be the first to object to anyone complaining about graphics, but when you have two excellent games competently covering the same subject, the only tiebreaker left *is* chrome, i.e. the little things that add character to the experience.

That said, I like the Grigsby game, and it does have some intereting mechanics to it (the cavalry rules are fun).

Oh, one final thing in Grigsby’s favor: the game plays properly *right out of the box* (ummm, download). No patch needed. Sure, some things need to be tweaked here and there, and surely there are a few buried bugs that will pop up.

But this is the first game in literally *years* that I’ve played without any major game-busting bugs upon release. No CTDs, no broken game mechanics, no memory hogs, nothing. Truly impressive, albeit because such release stability on a PC game is so sadly rare these days.