I'm really struggling to review this game. All in all, I would give it a "Neutral" rating, because I really enjoyed the game and it has several good aspects, but also a lot of annoying ones, which outweight the good things, when I look at it from an outside perspective.

And Act of Aggression does not start with a good impression, I can tell you that. The cutscenes are weird, being created with a mix of real life footage and CGI scenes and while the developers try to emulate the aesthetic of Act of War, they don't manage to, due to the lack of live action scenes. The first mission is also not that well done. You are tasked with capturing a person you know nothing about, the animations of your soldiers look weird and gunshots lack a punch.

The second mission isn't any better and although you get access to vehicles now, they also feel very floaty and weird. Almost all of them zip around like sports cars, even heavy vehicles like tanks, and their weapons also lack a certain punch, that makes them go 'pew', instead of 'BOOM'. This might be excusable for the Cartel and Chimera, because the Cartel uses Railguns, while the Chimera main battle tank has more of an anti air role and uses rockets against vehicles, but the Abrams has the same problem.

Also, the tutorial levels are pretty restrictive and railroad you into a certain playstyle, while not allowing you to build a base. This gets better though and once you have finished the first three missions, the game does open up and you get more freedom.

The problem with the following missions is, that the difficulty is a hit and miss. Granted, I'm not a good RTS player and like to take my time with everything, but in my opinion, some levels are just bullsh*t and created for a more experienced player. For example, one of the Chimera missions is more or a less a horde mode mission, where you need to build a certain unit in order to finish it, while also defending yourself from ever increasing enemy attacks. And when the second phase of the mission trigges, a new friendly base spawns, which you now need to protect and which gets attacked immeadiately.

Now, the immediate solution would be to migrate your forces down to second base, before it spawns in. Only problem is, that the enemy units are already down there and you would need to dispatch a good number of units to clean the area, while your original base still gets bombarded left and right and shot at with a superweapon.

And there are more missions like this, especially the foruth Cartel mission, which were just an excercise in frustration and while this may not be a bad thing in and of itself, the game also has no difficulty sliders to make the game harder or easier for you. And I have no shame in saying that I used a Trainer in order to get through some of those missions.

An other weak point is the story and while it's nice that the game is having one in the first place, it's not very good. The characters are bland and you don't really get to know anyone or what their personalities are. And while Act of War didn't have a great story either, it was well done and fleshed out enough to give each character a certain personality and a motivation for the bad guy, even if it just was money and power.

An other problem is, that things just happen. In your first mission, you get send in to arrest a woman named Yao, yet there is no explanation in who she is or why she's supposed to be important. There is also a major event, that could be the whole plot line of an other game, that just happens without any build up whatsoever.
The Cartel campaign does make a better job of conetextualizing each mission, but just slightly and all in all, the campaign is just a fancy excuse to push you from set piece to set piece, instead of trying to tell an interesting story.

Ok, enough for the bad things, lets go to the good stuff. First of all, despite of its flaws, I think that the main gameplay is fun. You have your base building, which each faction offering a good amount of buildings, ranging from barracks, to refineries that extract your ressources, vehicle factories and air control towers, up to your superweapons. Each faction follows the same basic template, when it comes to base building, but there are some minor differences. For example, both Chimera and the US Army can place their defence turrets freely, while the Cartel has to build them next to already existing buildings.

There is also a good selection of infantry and vehicles to choose from, with each army having eight infantry units and twelve ground vehicles, plus the helicopters and fighter jets. Although the Americans are a bit cheating with this, because most of their basic vehicles are several variants of the Stryker APC, but it does a good job of your army not feeling stale. And while all three factions have a similar playstyle, there are some minor differences. I might be wrong here, but it feels that Chimera is more focussed on anti infantry and anti air weapons, America is more focussed on anti vehicle warfare, while the Cartel has more long range units and superior fighter jets.

This also reflected in some other systems. For example, Chimera can upgrade their APCs to be a mobile healing unit, while also having a remote healing and revival pulse. The US has a designated hospital, which can also build a medic helicopter, while the Cartel has regular combat medics and can outfit their barracks with a healing aura. Or that Chimera has only one turret, while the US and the Cartel have two versions, one that can deal with everything ( with upgrades) and a second one, an AA turret for America and a mortar turret for the Cartel.

An other plus point are the music and graphics. Both are pretty good and really add to the experience. The soundtrack may not be iconic, but it does fit the action and keeps you going, while the game also has several screen shaking effects for heavy weapons. Artillery in particular feels very powerful with this and it adds the punch that the regular tanks are missing. Although there is the small caveat, in that the explosions look like someone just put a gif on the screen when you zoom in. It doesn't look bad, but a bit out of place.

And last, but not least, the game accomplishes what it has set out to be. It is a classical RTS and does no weird experiments, but keeps most of the stuff like it was back in the day. There are some small variations, like that Infantry ignores cliffs and can just walk up the walls or that builder units can't be controlled by the player and just spawn in to build your building and then disappear again, but overall, it's a classic game.

And overall, I would recommend the game, as I had a lot of fun with it, but with the weird difficulty spikes in the campaign, no difficulty sliders, the weak stories and some other small stuf I haven't talked about, like that the destruction of civilian buildings is inferior to the one in Act of War, I can't recommend the game in good faith, even though it is well done