Gentlemen, start your engines. Or pretend to start them, quietly sneak over to your opponent's car and cut the brake line. Deception-based real-time strategy game R.U.S.E. is now in open beta.

The beta can be downloaded and play through Steam. Participants will be able to fight A.I. opponents on the "Blitz" map to train themselves for online warfare. Seven multiplayer maps of varying sizes are available for use in three different game modes.

Before you go download the client, check out the system requirements:

Minimum

• OS: Windows® XP (with Service Pack 3) or Windows Vista® (with Service Pack 2) or Windows® 7
• Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD® Athlon™ 64 3000+ or higher
• Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2 GB for Vista and Win7
• Graphics: 128 MB DirectX® 9.0c-compliant video card (ATI® Radeon X1000/GeForce® 6 Series or better)
• DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c (included)
• Sound: DirectX 9.0c-compliant sound card

Recommended

• OS: Windows® XP (with Service Pack 3) or Windows Vista® (with Service Pack 2) or Windows® 7
• Processor: 3.5 GHz Intel® Pentium® D or AMD® Athlon™ 64 3500+ or higher
• Memory: 2 GB (XP / Vista / Win7)
• Graphics: 256 MB DirectX® 9.0c-compliant video card (ATI® Radeon X1900 series / GeForce® 7800 or better)
• DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c (included)
• Sound: DirectX® 9.0c-compliant sound card