I actually kinda hated the stage battles at first. But now, I'm in love with them. Every battle after I got used to the RTS system was even more amazing then the last. Now this game has some super replay value for me.
I'm an old school RTS fan and was pretty happy to see it included as a major component of the main game plot. There are definitely hours and hours of game play in multiplayer mode. I've only tried the AI Practice Mode so far. I will definitely be looking to play matches with actual live opponents, but first I must conquer normal AI at the very least. Which is proving pretty difficult.