Standard disclaimer: if you are seeing this review within the affiliated sites that Stardock propagates the review to then please don't complain that it was published in the wrong place.  Stardock pushes content in their various sites to other affiliated sites.  This article was originally published in the Gaming -> Console Games -> XBOX area of JoeUser.com (which is the proper area for this content).

Please note that I'm not going to bore anyone with a complete review of this game, especially considering that there are other reviews out there, some of which do an excellent job of reviewing the game.  One such review, which I'm linking to a few pictures from, can be found at the Video Game Talk site (VideoGameTalk.com review).  Please check out the review there for a more complete review of the game, rather than just my quick comments here.  Consider my comments here a quick and dirty review that'll help get you interested perhaps, and consider the VGT review a fully fleshed out review that will cover the game in depth.

Box/package artwork linked from Amazon.com

On another site I frequent one of my Xbox Live "friends" noticed that I had been playing The History Channel's Civil War: A Nation Divided throughout the day (a neat feature of Xbox Live if you've not ever used it, you can check what your friends are playing and see if you can join them, or perhaps invite them to play with you if you are playing a game that will accept multiple players {but, I digress...}).  That friend asked for my thoughts on the game, and as I had intended to write up a quick review anyway, well, here I am.

Civil War is much like Call of Duty, I would say 2 not 3, for game play, but more like 3 in that the game plays "on rails" for the most part.  That only makes sense since the game was put out by Activision games, the same games studio/publisher that put out both Call of Duty games (COD2 and COD3).  It obviously uses the same game engines that were already in use for COD2/COD3, and uses the same basic controls.  That's good for gamers that are familiar with COD2/COD3 as the learning curve is much lower for them.

Image linked from Video Game Talk web site

Sum it up for me please:

The pluses: it's the Civil War, you play through historic battles, with interesting (and as historically accurate as the pros at the History Channel were able to produce) cut scenes and intros to the action you'll participate in. You'll play through multiple battles, some for both the North and the South (six historic battles per side in all). You must complete both sets of battles to "finish the war" and you won't get to the last battle until you've completed both North and South full list of battles.

The minuses: you are using weaponry from the Civil War era. You'll spend a lot of the time reloading your musket, or whatever weapon you are using. You'll stand in the open (for the most part) when you do so, and you'll take damage from a soldier on the other side that is doing the same thing. It can be frustrating, but it's not so difficult that you can't get through it.

Some more details:

Some parts of the combat will be by knife, some by rifle, etc. The controls are similar to Call of Duty, but not exactly the same.   For example, pressing the control for "reload" that is used in Call of Duty does nothing in Civil War.

Image linked from Video Game Talk web site

There's no multiplayer options for the game that I can tell.  It's single player only, and that really kills replay value for the game.  (Something that the VideoGameTalk.com reviewer duly noted and graded harshly on).

There's a LOAD option that seems to make no sense as there is no save option to be found (at least not one that readily stood out to me).

There's a downloadable content option but with nothing out on the Xbox Marketplace to download at this time.  I suppose more battles and other playable content could be produced in the future, and that could add greatly to the value of the game, but there's nothing there at this time.

Oh, I should add that there's secret areas and such to find in the game, but again for the most part the game follows a linear path with set objectives that you'll keep moving towards, even if you have to take the long way around.

Is it worth getting?

I have it out as a Gameznflix.com rental. Since I got through the game (on Easy level) in about 2 days of my game playing (about 4 - 6 hours total), I'd say it's better as a rental than a purchase.  I'm not as harsh on my rating for the game as the reviewer (Mike Flacy) at VideoGameTalk.com.  I can't say it's worth a purchase, but it is worth playing.  I'd say get it as a rental and play through it that way.  True Civil War buffs might want to add the game to their collection for the bonus materials, but I'd recommend looking for bargain pricing, or holding out a while longer as the price is already on the way down.

I may play back through on Normal level before returning it, but would probably not play through the Hard level as playing through the game 3 times just doesn't seem to be worth it to me.  I am however interested in seeing the bonus material on the disc as History Channel produces some of the best historic programming anyone could ever hope to see.