I'm not 100% sure what you mean by Smart Pause Mode...but if it's anything like, oh, Dragon Age: Origins or Neverwinter Nights, it's ok.
I don't like ultimately how I feel after playing an hour of it though, of smacking the space bar at just the right moment to get the game to stop. One of the big appeals to TBS is that you can calculate a lot of results way in advance. It's for people who like chess as much as real time action.
Nah, SPM is different.
It is essentially real time, but it automatically can pause after each 'action'. Each action takes a certain amount of time (a base time, that is modified by your attributes). If I have my character reload a gun, that takes 2.3 seconds, as soon as he is done with that action it will pause and I can give another order, like, walk to that building, which takes 15.2 seconds. Midway there, say 4.5 seconds into the action, an enemy may turn a corner, that will automatically pause- at which point I may cancel my order and replace it with one to raise my firearm (.46 seconds), then shoot at its head (.95 seconds), but, all the while the enemy is doing stuff as well, so during the time I am raising my firearm for better aim, it may be dropping down to prone, or something, taking a second or two.
It is ultimately real time, but it pauses after everything you do, and everything has a 'time' to complete which makes it really feel turn based. You spend a heck of a lot more time paused than not, and more often than not time is going at 1/5 speed, so a 1 minute fight will often take 15-20 minutes to play out.
it is Awesome.