The game looks absolutely beautiful and the edition of ship based combat is something that has been sorely missed in the previous total war series. Its interesting although not surprising that the American Revolution is its own campaign, would be more so if other countries had such a campaign (France for instance?). Multiplayer campaign sounds awesome as well.
I'm very interested in seeing how the game will handle defenses, trenches, embankments and the like, as well as height advantages as these played a huge role in combat and I've never really felt like the Total War series emphasized it as much as it could have.
The one thing I've been a bit miffed about is that the Collectors edition aka special forces has unique units (not sure if they will be available in MP). Well the box set of this includes the typical concept art, map etc... The digital D/L (Direct2Drive/Steam) does not provide these yet charges the same price.
It would seem to me in an era when digital distribution is increasing in popularity and Steam is becoming quite the powerhouse that the consumer should not be getting screwed by choosing the digital option as it is often more convient for everyone involved.
Of additional concern is that the pre-order depending on where its purchased from contains access to unique ingame units. The U.S.S. Constitution being one such example. So if your ordering it just be observant if your looking for a particular unit. This has also been seen with the new Tom Clancy Fighter pilot game HAWX where different Aircraft are available based on pre-order location. Either way with the art and resources allready in the game its only a matter of time for mods
to bring these in.
Anycase I've wandered a bit, but I'm excited to see how this game turns out...
Links -
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/10 ... interview/
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/emp ... index.html
http://pc.ign.com/articles/815/815233p1.html