Since there don't seem to be many impressions yet ... I've been playing this on 360 a lot over the weekend. I work for Ubisoft and got an early copy, and I haven't been hooked quite like this by a game in some while. I always liked the idea of Brothers in Arms, but while the previous games were good in their own right, perhaps for technical reasons I wasn't sure they'd totally achieved what they set out to do.

However, so far Hell's Highway does with bells on. Here are my key loves:

Strong story.

I never wholly bought into the brotherhood aspect of the previous games. But this time the characters are distinct and fleshed out enough that you really care who lives and dies. The cutscenes are lengthily, well written, well directed and well acted - and really draw you into the plot. The game even starts with a nicely done "Previously on Brothers in Arms" sequence to remind you of key plot points from the past two games. This is worthwhile as certain memories come back to haunt Baker (the player character) this time around - with the war taking rather more of an emotional toll. Some brief sections of the gameplay become purely story based with you separated from your squad and poking around some neat scripted stuff on your own. The shifts from big squad action to almost-survival-horror-esque eerie treks through darkened buildings is well handled.

Varied gameplay.

There are a bunch of ways the gameplay has been polished up from the previous two games. Things like the variety of teams under your command, the destructible cover, the wider open levels, the cover system, and the improved AI.

The cover system is the most obvious gameplay improvement, and you really wonder how the game ever worked without. It zips you out to third person and gives you the time to breathe, think and use tactics properly. Combined with the new threat indication stuff (the screen slowly washes red while you're vulnerable, and if you stay out too long you tend to get shot) it really add to the sense of pressure and immersion.

The fact that you can now have bazooka, machine gun, assault and base-of-fire teams might not seem like a big deal, but it adds a decent amount of variety to the way you approach obstacles in the game. This combined with the wider levels and the destructible cover moves the gameplay away from those linear "puzzle solving" bottleneck moments you sometimes encountered in BiA:RtHT and BiA:EiB, and leads to finding more immediate improvised solutions.

The tank sections are also improved. I've only seen one so far, but this time you actually switch to control the tank commander and drive the tank rather than just ordering it around. With all the destructible objects and some nice crunchy sound effects, you really feel the shift in power from running around to driving a tank. Neatly, the cover button causes your character to duck into the tank and close the hatch - this means you can't use the turret-mounted machine gun but is handy if you're under heavy fire and just want to twat everyone with the big cannon.

Gearbox have also thrown in a bunch of legacy controller layouts based on those used in other FPS games - given natty names like "Tactical Six", "Tour of Duty", "Ring World" ...

Nice tech.

The game runs on Unreal Engine 3, and while you get the occasional bit of slow texture loading it does make things look very snazzy indeed. The character models really sinks you into the story - with every detail right down to facial expressions, shiny eyes, stubble and scars earned in previous BiAs there to see. You don't necessarily notice all this character detail while playing, but since the cut-scenes are all in-engine and transition straight into and out of the gameplay, you always appreciate it. There's still no other game that makes you *feel* like you're in command of a team like BiA. Just the way you can look back from a flank and see your guys with their individual animations firing and reloading and covering each other and shouting. You also feel more physically involved this time around. Look down and you can see your legs. Vault a wall and your hand comes out to grab it, you see the shadow of yourself vaulting, and your view tilts and dips as you do so. They've also really gone to town on differentiating the "days" you go through. The first few taking place in open fields and sunshine, then into a night time house-to-house firestorm as Eindhoven gets bombed, then heavy rain and so on. All really well done with some very nice visual effects.

Production values.

The game feels a lot more epic this time, with large scale set pieces and a great musical score and audio. Just take the "proper" first mission credits sequence. Under Matt Baker's monologue, the titles appear in cloud banks as the camera pans along a formation of gliders and their tow planes. It then zooms gently into the cockpit of your glider; right up to Bakers stubbly man-chin, then takes you around the conversations of the crew, and follows you into land. All in game engine. The feel of the majority of the cutscenes is a lot more hand-held than before - moving in and out of slow-mo where appropriate to add effect. Neat.

There's probably going to be about 10-12 hours of gameplay in the single player for me (at the easiest difficulty). But completing it unlocks authentic mode, so I’ll probably try and give it another run through. There are also three achievement baiting Kilroys to find in each map (wall markings like the Lambda symbols in Half Life 2) - and a bunch of recon points that unlock historical information. I'm not sure about the multiplayer yet, since there's no one else online. Boo.

As I said above, Brothers in Arms is a series I always wanted to love but, while I enjoyed the previous games, they never quite tweaked my man parts in the right way. Hell's Highway tweaks them good and proper. And no mistake. Chim chiminey.

Hope this post helps SOMEONE. Again for transparency, I work at Ubisoft so WOULD say I like the game. Feel free to take my comments with as many salt-pinches as you like. But hopefully someone will back me up once the game is in US stores (tomorrow?).