And how the hell do you play it?

I loved Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII,and I really want to spend some time (and money) playing this one,but I guess I don't want to waste my money just learning how to play it.

Its actually pretty simple. Each card is assigned an attack rating and hp rating. You have so many points in your pool to use to decide which cards to play as each card has a different point value that it costs to add to your deck. The lower left number is your damage rating for attacking. The number in the lower right is yuour hit points for the card. The number in the lower center is how many points the card costs to add to your playing deck. Character cards can only attack the cards directly above them. Vehicle cards take all damage from distance attackers such as turrets. Distance attackers will only be able to attack the vehicle card, when it is in play so its kind of like a shield. Turrets can attack up to 3 slots away from its played position on the board. Grenades will do damage to the four closest enemy cards, on the board, from its played position. The object is, of course to be the last one with cards on the board. I will generally add my my best and second best character cards to my deck first. Then I will add a vehicle, another high value character card, then a grenade, character card, turret, caracter cards. I hope this helps.