Civil War for a non-Marvel reader?

[The Rusty Lantern]

I'm a DC man through and through when I do actually buy books (which I haven't done for 10 years), but I am interested in this Civil War story arc at Marvel, but I have no idea what's going on other than the controversy over metahuman registration is at the heart of the whole thing. I tried searching the threads, but came up even more confused. Can someone:

*provide a SHORT synopsis of what this story is all about
*provide a SHORT explanation of which characters are on which side and WHY
*theories as to what Marvel hopes to accomplish with this arc
*other things someone like me would want to know

Perhaps this would be a good sticky thread? Much obliged.

[garin]

I think the Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_War_%28comics%29) has most of the things you're looking for.

[Tater]

Garin is correct man. Just check out Wikipedia.