At first glance, Panzer General: Allied Assault looks a bit like a glorified Stratego. After a few minutes, it begins to look more like a wartime collectible-card game than the classic board game. But after a few hours, it starts to look more and more like our next tactical addiction.

Somewhere between a traditional turn-based strategy game and Magic: The Gathering, Allied Assault’s steep learning curve placed its foot firmly into the seat of our pants for a few rounds before the complexity of the title fully revealed itself to us. Combat, with its many phases and stat-manipulations, was confusing and more than a little intimidating at first (even after we tackled the tutorial); but once we managed to get the hang of it, we obsessively attempted to learn all of its nuances. Our most debated (and hated) move was the Sacrifice step, in which you’re asked to give up a card to award Attack or Defense points to your units. Many a battle came down to deciding whether we should sacrifice an M4A1 Sherman tank in our hand to save one of our Howitzers. And numerous battles were lost when we made the wrong choice.

Of course, with many card/board games, there’s always the possibility of playing the game so much and so often that the intricacies become mundane and predictable. Fortunately, Panzer General manages to keep the action varied enough to mesmerize even the most obsessive player for long stretches. The custom deck creator delightfully extends the life of the game as you swap cards in and out, finding more and better uses for them.

While the deceptively complex gameplay of Panzer General certainly won’t appeal to everyone, armchair generals will find more than enough to get the full bang out of their buck.

On Xbox Live Arcade

+ Wonderfully deep gameplay underneath layers of complexity.

+ Huge amount of variety in both cards and maps.

- Steep learning curve.

? Why not use those gigantic dice to crush your opponents?

8.0