i got it!  not the collectors, but the regular.  True to EA fashion, a update is already required.

What do you gys think of it so far?

I really dig it but the AI is -HARD-. I fired up a skirmish with an easy enemy to just test stuff out and he kicked my ass. .hard. In generals, the easy AI would send baddies at ya every so often. This easy was relentless. I had to get an AI teammate to give me screw around time.

I could take 1v3 in generals on hard...But I just got skillz like that :-)

try C&CRA3 and see how that works

EA knows about the problem and is addressing it.  I got the collector's edition (since I'm a C&C nerd... I also tend to be a sucker for the shiny packaging); so far I think the game is pretty cool, it just has a steeper learning curve than Tiberium Wars since there is naval units too now.  Instead of just anti-infantry, anti-vehicle, and anti-air, you now have to worry about anti-sea as well.  Units seem to be less specialized too; more multirole units as it stresses using unit secondary abilities.  On top of that, each faction operates very differently, much more varied than the factions in TW.  I have to relearn a lot, like build order, well balanced assault forces, and which units tend to be more useful.

skirmish lan lets do it