FWIW, never got all the hype around it. The opening was incredibly powerful though. I felt Band of Brothers was better overall by a significant margin.
FWIW, my father was a WWII vet, he didn't land at Normandy, he landed about a month later at Omaha beach. He tended not to watch WWII movies but he had a reason to watch this one (he had been interviewed by the T-P and folks that worked on the film). He did say the actual battle scenes were the most realistic he had seen to date. Man, I miss him.....