Anomaly: Warzone Earth

The Good
Controller support: as good as Microsoft's Halo 2. The gameplay is all-controller, no mouse needed. You still need to press Esc to skip the intro, and Space to skip the cutscenes. Everything else is done on the gamepad. You don't need to configure any buttons. Just install the game and plug in your USB gamepad, and it's good to go. The default button layout is fine.

The voice acting is fine. Nothing special (Don't expect Metal Gear Solid quality dialogues), but not gonna make you wanna skip the cutscenes either.

It's probably exciting and fresh for two hours. And then it gets real repetitive (see below).

The Bad
Game design is questionable in many areas. Almost every level invites you to use the exact same strategies. Every level feels the same. It gets really tedious. The difficulty settings are upsetting -- you may want to just beat the "casual" difficulty and never bother with the rest. There are three medals in each level, all of which are tedious and boring to get.

Unit design: The units are too similar, and there is generally no reason to use the "low-level" units once you get the "high-level" units.

Weapon design: Your weapons and the enemy's weapons are the most generic type of weapons. Your reaction will just be "oh, the enemy's attacking" and "oh, I'm attacking", without any kind of excitement.

Unit upgrades: The later upgrades cost a lot of money (often more than you will ever be able to afford -- pointless). The upgrades don't seem to be as strong as their price would suggest.

The battles: You're either crushing the enemies, or you're being crushed by the enemies. There is no balance. Battles are way too predictable.

Graphics: It looks like there are many things on your map, but 90% of this is eye candy, and doesn't affect your gameplay. None of the graphics is memorable. Very generic "war" graphics.

Sound: Like the graphics, there is no memorable sound in this game. Very generic "war" sounds.

The Bottom Line
It's aimed at a casual audience who want to play every level in exactly the same way. It's a generic "you attack me, I attack you" game without much imagination or creativity.