just wanted to recommend this one to the gog community, especially since it's popping up on things like impulse and steam now
it really is a great game and it's got a bit of retro strategy flavor, plus it's pretty cheap

Best game of 2008 hands down.

Just to play the devil's advocate, I'm going to warn everyone that the game is very grindy and has some very annoying design flaws such as making the player run all around the world to restock your troops every so often. Quests, side quests and the quest rewards are also a major disappointment. You are only rewarded with a small amount of exp and a negligible amount of cash that will not even pay for 1/10th of the troops you lost in the harder fights.
This became painfully obvious to me after I beat a hard fight against an Archmages staff. There were some slight hints that a powerful enough Mage could dominate and use the staff, so you'd think that a powerful staff would be the end reward for the hard fight, but it wasn't. In the end I got 3k gold which bought back like 10 units out of a hundred or so that I had lost.

From what I understand, this game is pretty much Heroes of Might and Magic with different graphics.

Strangely, I agree with both ElPixelllustre and Zingrad.

Well, kind of, but you have no town building and such. Here's some history for those who care: HoMM was actually based on King's Bounty which was released in 1990. I wonder what fit of madness caused the russians to obtain the licence for such an old IP that hardly anyone remembers since it's pretty much been buried by HoMM.

I have to agree with Zingrad. The game is amazing, and is a really well made modern remake of the old King's Bounty game, with the action between battles in real-time. Unfortunately, there are those design flaws Zingrad mentioned.
I wasn't bugged much by the scarcity of money, but most kinds of troops are available in only one or two places, and they do not replenish over time, which means that once you've bought them all, they're gone, and you can no longer refill your army with that particular kind of troop. Since you can only have five kinds of troops at any time, this becomes a problem eventually.
Also, the game world is presumably much larger than the bits I've managed to unlock, but there is little to no information on what you need to do to unlock more of it.
Additionally, I've found that determining the likely outcome of a battle ahead of time is much too difficult. Two groups of monsters right next to each other can vary so wildly in difficulty that you can beat one easily right away, but still get flattened by the other 6 hours later in the game.

Sins of a Solar Empire

Awesome, awesome game; I cannot recommend it highly enough. For those who aren't yet familiar with the game it's basically an RPG/TBS hybrid- best comparison I can make is an adventure/rpg style HOMM map, but with realtime overworld movement. The diversity of unit types (and their various abilities), spells, and spirits of rage offer numerous different strategies, although some overall strategic vision is required to make sure one's army, spells, and skills all compliment each other well.
I also have to disagree with some of the criticisms offered up. With regards to Zingrad, I'll say that quest rewards tend to be proportionate to the difficulty or length of quests. Easy quests do only provide marginal amounts of gold and experience, although tougher and more involved quests often are rewarded with useful equipment, talent runes, scrolls, or new creatures being available for recruitment. All in all I think quests and rewards are balanced out pretty well. With regards to Wishbone, I personally think the limited number of certain creatures is a good feature, rather than a flaw, as it encourages one to limit losses, instead of simply fighting battles of attrition, but this is ultimately a matter of personal opinion. However, regarding determining enemy stack strength, there's a scouting skill that will allow you to see increasing details about an enemy stack, including an estimate of their strength compared to your own strength. A few battles with different creatures should also give a pretty good idea about what kinds of enemies your army can take on easily or will have a harder time against (for example, an army with both Priests and Inquisitors will absolutely decimate an enemy stack with mostly Ghosts, while an army with mostly melee units will have a much more difficult time).
Finally, I'll just say again that I highly, highly recommend this game, and if you think you might enjoy this type of game at least try out the demo.

It is an interesting game. Check out the demo if you are looking at buying it.

Metal Gear Solid 4

Metal Gear Solid is a very good movie and Sins of a Solar Empire is probably also very good (I've not played it), but King's Bounty: The Legend gave my the best 70 hours of gameplay of 2008 (I finished it twice).

I agree, with the possible exception of Audiosurf, I can't think of any 2008-releases I enjoyed more than King's Bounty. It's not perfect, but the combat is just soooo good, and it practically devoured weeks of my life.
Edit: Sins doesn't come close. Sorry. :-)

I dunno, maybe I'll give it a shot, at least I'll try the demo.

I'll definitely give it a shot since i have acess to it through my metaboli subscription. As a matter of fact i'm dl' ing it right now.
Not having enough free time causes me to sometimes miss great games for a while.
Thanks for the heads up everybody.