I got this book because the game looked cool and the Splinter Cell books under the same Tom Clancy umbrella are pretty cool. Unfortunately this one doesn't meet those expectations. The story juggles about five different plotlines throughout as part of a rehashed plot of: Russians = Bad, US (and Euros) = Good, Canada = Neutral. Of course Russia attacks Canada who wants to stay out of it and the US has to protect their borders so they send troops to defend Canada from the evil Motherland. You can guess who wins. Roll credits. The Russians were like those early WWII movies where the German guys are visually represented as the top of a gray helmet.

The reason this story fails is in the plot, not the writing. It was written by UbiSoft's "David Michaels" which is the pen name for all authors of Tom Clancy video game books; though very few were written by the same person. This incarnation of Dave's writing was not too bad; for the most part the action was exciting. It was simply difficult to juggle so many diverse plots-few of which interact-and keep the story feeling intertwined. Sure they're all in the same war, but most are happening thousands of miles apart and have little in common (One's a ground war, another follows the president, the best one follows a submarine crew). The video game, when you control all, looks to be fun (I have not and do not intend on playing it) but when you aren't in control it's like watching somebody else play-with no input-for ten hours.