Excerpt from the rulebook:
"Accusation is a card game in which players take on the roles of countries engaged in world events. Players use their country’s assets: military, intelligence, economy, diplomacy, and research to influence the outcome of world events and gain victory points to achieve world domination."
Players simultaneously and anonymously enact "world events" in the form of cards. They then bluff and use different abilities (each costing different sorts of resources) in order to further their agendas and gain victory points while trying to avoid bad reputation and resource loss, both of which make it more difficult to advance one's own agendas as well as accuse others of other actions.
The fast paced, primarily concurrent nature of Accusation makes it a high-intensity game. The only part of a turn in which any waiting occurs is during the turn-based "Accusation Phase" wherein players take turns attempting to call out others for playing cards.
Accusation is modern-themed and comes with 45 unique event cards, but it is designed to be highly extensible. New mechanics, new events, theme elements such as Cold War politics, and many other advances can (and will) be implemented in expansions.