Monsters Menace America. A game in which you play a monster rampaging across the continent crushing all in his (or her) path, while at the same time using a branch of the military dedicated to stopping the rampage of fellow players' monsters. Sounds like the making of an awesome game to me! Now for some of the details as to how this game was fabulously implemented and produced.

First I draw your attention to the monsters themselves:
Some of them have terrific detail and when they tower over the map you really feel like you're playing this gigantic beast invading North America.

The monsters are certainly the best aspect of this game's production, but the bits are made of sturdy cardboard, the army pieces are plastic models as opposed to cheap cardboard representations, and the cards are of solid stock. All the artwork in the game is fantastic and theme driven and even the rulebook is terrific and is written thematically to give you a feel for the atmosphere in the game. When I see great production like this I can't help but think that this game has potential. The only complaint I have is the character HP track, which is hard to attach, and when moved damages the card (like in Betrayal at House on the Hill).

The back of the box gives you a pretty good feel for the awesome production put into this game.

So, now that you're convinced the bits and pieces are terrific, how about the gameplay and mechanics. Each turn consists of moving your monster around and crushing cities to gain HP and/or infamy or interacting with experiment sites where you can gain mutations, making your monster more versatile and powerful. On your rampage, you may encounter military units. These are typically no problem to swat aside, but do slow you down. However, if you're worried about this, be sure to grab a monster that can evade the military by swimming out to sea, or even fly overtop of most units. This reminds me that I should mention each monster is unique in starting HP and abilities. Some can fly, some can swim, some can swat down airplanes... but I 'll leave most of that for you to explore when you play this game for the first time.

A few examples of mutation cards.

After the monster moves, and crushes something, you mobilize your branch of the military (army, airforce, marines etc.), allowing you to move and deploy units. You may use these guys just to slow other monsters down, or you can gather your units together for a large scale attack and actually try to deal some damage. You can even use nuclear missiles against the monsters! (but be careful because rolling a critical miss on a nuclear strike causes the monster to mutate for free!). Rather than deploy units you can also draw Military Research cards, which give you greater military strength, and in some cases give you access to the special units, some of which are actually super heroes!

(note that these units aren't actually painted when you receive the game, but are nonetheless really cool!)

You may even succeed in subduing a monster with a huge military strike, but not to worry, that player is far from finished. When a monster is subdued he is sent to Hollywood, where he is put on display. Each turn your monster is in Hollywood he slowly recovers HP until he is strong enough to break free and rampage once more across the continent!
Hollywood is down there in the bottom left. Don't that monster look like he's having fun!

The only complaint I can issue comes from settling a victor. I think the game designers figured they'd built something really cool, then couldn't decide how it was supposed to end, so they decided that the monsters would just fight each other in a great final battle, and last monster standing wins the game. This has the advantage that you're never sure if you've lost the game, as with some lucky rolls at the end anyone could come out on top, but it does feel a little anti-climatic to crush North America, and then settle the winner with dice rolling. Then again, I can't think of a better way to end the game, so I guess this is acceptable.

Some final points to take away:
This is a fun game. Sure there's a bit of strategy and decision making, but ultimately you should play this game if your primary objective is to have fun. For a more technical strategy-based game (which can also be enjoyable) I would look elsewhere.
The bits are fantastic! The monsters look gorgeous, and everything about the production was well thought through. I can only criticize the inside of the box, which isn't anything special, and the HP counters (which scratch the cards).
You get to control giant monsters and heavy weaponry!
The game takes between 1 to 2 hours, depending on the number of players, but this game works with any number of people, which I really like.

Now, if you didn't read all that and just want the skinny:
Fun/Theme:
Mechanics:
Components:
Weight:

And if you really don't like reading, this all translates into 9/10.