Grand Campaign?

Hey all. Look time voyeur, first time poster. I finally had a question that I couldn't find a thread about, so had to make an account.

One of the main reasons I have always loved TW is because of the blank canvas approach. I started with STW (a mini-blank canvas if you will) and have been playing all the titles since. I am a little scared of NTW because so much of the game seems to be tied up in the somewhat linear Napoleon campaign. Could someone who has the game answer two questions for me?
1) tell me about the Grand Campaign (as I understand it, when you play as GB, PRS, etc), and specifically how it compares to GC of past TW titles? How big is the map for the GC? I take it there aren't sperate theaters?

2)exactly how linear is the Napoleon campaign? I know that there is one overlying objective to each act (capturing a city or region), but I am wondering if this is as linear as the Road to Independence campaign in ETW, or much more "wide open-feeling" like the missions from the senate in RTW?

Thanks in advance, the above concern really has me on the fence about the game so I would appreciate any insight.

First off: Welcome to the Forum!

Second, apart from the smaller "RTI-like" campaigns (Italy,Egypt,Europe) there is a Grand Campaign much like the ETW one, except for a smaller map (grrr, probably my biggest gripe so far) that doesn't include North Africa or much of the Middle East, no America or India. (They really took a step back with that, although it'll probably be a DLC at some point)

So it's very Euro-centric (a la the first Medieval Total War). But otherwise, the GC will be very similar.