No Man’s Land is a relatively simple RTS. You start each round with a few units, which you set about hunting, gathering and building. You’ll manage resources such as wood and gold, which you gather from the land and process at mills, plantations and other structures. Once you've gathered enough of these resources, you can start building new structures, which then can produce units such as peasants or warriors. Each unit or structure costs you some type of related resource and takes a certain amount of time to build. Many rounds start out following the same tried-and-true RTS pattern of building cheap peasant units, setting dozens of them to collecting resources, building new structures and getting more powerful until you can complete the mission objective. And just like most other RTS titles, your group will be assigned a hero, a central figure who comes complete with special abilities and acts as a key point in the campaign's storyline.

After a good bit of collecting and building, you'll probably get brave enough to start sending your fighting units out to attack the enemy. More often than not, however, you’ll end up spending the first half hour of every round desperately defending your encampments from overwhelmingly powerful invaders. That’s not to say that every round is played out this way, as there are some great narrative episodes in No Man’s Land that serve to spice things up, but just as you’re enjoying those moments, you get thrown back into the "build, buy, blitz" mode.

The unit types, being historically inspired, are unique in their attacks, defenses and special skills. The British, for example, are crack shots with their muskets, but only middling at melee attacks. The two Native American tribes are almost unbalanced in their skill sets, however, as they can easily traverse water, cast spells and quickly wreck just about any structure. Fighting against them is almost futile until you outnumber them by at least a 2:1 ratio. The American Colonial Militia is almost hilarious in its lameness, as they are only good when attacking in huge swarms.

Soldier AI really reduces much of the enjoyment one might get from No Man’s Land, as these guys frequently just don’t do what they are told. Naval combat becomes an exercise in futility as your ships frequently decide to take on a new target before they’ve finished off the ones they're currently assigned to attack. What’s worse, the pathfinding AI has issues, which oftentimes will leave you with units scattered about the maps, each trying to find a better way to the destination. To top it off, the minute the battle becomes pitched, your units will start to drift in different directions as they head for new targets. Whereas the AI in CDV’s American Conquest: Fight Back suffered from an excess of cowardice, it seems the unit AI in No Man’s Land suffers from an excess of bravado.

The visuals in No Man’s Land are a definite high point, with amazing amounts of detail in every aspect of the game. Sailing ships, towns, fighting units, even ocean waves are rendered with exacting detail. The landscapes are so realistic you can practically taste the dust in your mouth when playing in the Wild West. The animations are equally good, with smooth movement for all units, especially noticeable in the billowing sails of the warships.

As far as audio-candy goes, you won’t find too much new here; just lots of gunfire and soldiers replying to orders. Each unit replies in its native language, which would be great if the units had more than a handful of phrases at their disposal. The musical score is entertaining and keeps pace with the gameplay, but isn't anything award-winning.

If you’re into online play, you’ll be pleased to know that No Man’s Land does offer LAN and Internet gameplay. The Internet gameplay is supported by GameSpy Arcade, which, if you’re read my earlier reviews, you’ll know I dislike as being a studio’s way of copping out of hosting their own servers, but that’s a discussion for another day. There are more than enough online gameplay modes to ensure that you get your money’s worth from No Man’s Land.

No Man’s Land is certainly not the worst RTS I’ve seen this year, but it’s not nearly as original as it might first appear to be. As advertised, the units of each nation-state are quite unique, but that’s just not enough to carry the entire game. Related Designs and CDV have a good game on their hands with No Man’s Land, it’s just that the gameplay is basically a carbon copy of every other RTS out there, and thus it lacks the "oomph" to push it to the level of being a great RTS.