This will be my first indepth review here on the Geek, so bear with me, and please post any insightful/useful comments you might have.

Hour of Glory is a game of WWII espionage, played on a variable game map with card or metal miniatures and dice rolling. It can be played with 2-4 players, one taking the side of the germans, and 1-3 taking one infiltrating allied agent each, playing cooperatively against the germans. (Think DOOM with Nazis!).

There are few criticisms, so I´ll get them out of the way for starters. The producers are a small game company (Warm Acre), so don´t expect the same high production standards as you might from a game from, say, Fantasyflightgames or Days of Wonder. The game box is quite discreet and the game components themselves don´t have the same WOW!factor that components from the major players have. Warm Acre are just 2 guys, having done the whole game themselves, no 20 man graphics&design department here. But what they´ve done works surprisingly well! The gameboard is designed in subdued colours that set the mood very well, and the cards and counters complement this. The various agents and germans are represented by cardcounters in plastic holders, and though they are ok, the game deserves to be played with miniatures. Luckily Warm Acre have these too, or you could just use your own, if you have any lying around. One minor annoyance are the doors, which are also card pieces that slot into a plastic base. But the bases dont hold the card very well, it tends to slip out, but this can be easily remedied with a drop of glue.
The game also includes a timer wheel, used to count down the hour(of glory) of game time, that is the frame of the game. The game also includes 6sided cubes with numbers on them, that you roll in the game for various numerical results! As clever as this game mechanic seems, I´m sure I´ve seen it somewhere before...

The rulebook is 60 pages, a bit confusing at first, so this is (at least for me!) the kind of game, where you read the rules a couple of times, play the game flicking through the book, a lot! Then rereading the rules, going Aaah! Clever! Then playing the game again, this time with much less flicking, and then you should have the hang of it. There´s a quick reference sheet available online, that I regret not having for my first few plays, but highly recommend for new players!

The game itself is a cat&mouse-fest with the allied agents sneaking around the Nazi stronghold, trying to gather intelligence, and the Nazis trying to expose them. Play alternates in rounds, the agent(s) going first. Each round an agent will MOVE and take an ACTION. The really clever and fun thing about this game is that the agents start the game in RAIDING mode, where they try to sneak around undetected. Raiding agents have to sneak by sentries, possibly eliminating them and concealing the bodies, breach doors, photograph enemy plans and avoid the german commander. Whenever an agent tries to do any of these tasks he has two possibilities, taking a chance OR taking time. This works by rolling one or more dice, comparing the result to your skill rating to find out if you succeed. The choice here is about time. If you take a chance, you roll less dice, with a smaller chance of succes, but no time will be deducted for your activity. If you spend time most activities will succeed automatically, but the german player will take time from you, counting down your 60 minutes of game time. If you fail sneaking around a sentry he will be alerted, and a marker is placed on him.

The german player only has one active figure at the start of the game, the commander. His job is moving around the stronghold, gathering alert markers from sentries and trying to expose the raiders. At the end of every round he also deducts one or more minutes from the timer. Sentries never leave their post, but will of course shoot if any agents become exposed.
If agents are exposed, the commander has the option of raising the alarm, allowing him to place guards, corresponding to the number of alert markers collected, in unexplored rooms. The guards will then try to hunt down and eliminate the agents.

When this happens your RAIDING agent is converted to an ASSAULTER. Your stat card is turned over and we now have an entire new game mode. Assaulters can´t spend time doing activities and will probably have to fight a few guards before being able to return to the mission. Being exposed is not as bad as it sounds, although you run the risk of being killed and loosing the game. But if you can escape into a room and close all the doors, you can hide, taking a lot of time, but causing the germans to call off the alarm, allowing you to turn back into Raiding mode, and resume your mission!
Intelligence is represented by cards, distributed throughout the stronghold, backside up, and divided into sets with different values. You have to escape the stronghold with a set number of points to win. There´s also a stronghold map, that allows you to take a peek at any cards in unexplored rooms.

There are a few more rules covering enemy occupied rooms and recovering, but the above should give you the spirit of the game. It feels a lot like playing Metal Gear on a playstation, and games can get quite tense, especially for the agents. Sometimes the german player will find his options slightly limited, but the game plays fast enough to switch sides afterwards.
All in all a fun, tense and fast game, playable in about an hour. Expansions are available and new scenarios are on the way, including german guard dogs (that make sneaking more difficult, yikes!) and scientists to rescue.
Recommendable!!!