This was the pinnacle of he 2D RTS genre. Fun game, great universe with a huge series of books as backstory. Amazing!
This game defined Westwood studios. It was the hieght of RTS gaming.
Not only could you choose your main race, but you could also choose from other allies both in the story mode and in skirmish/multiplayer.
This game provided hours of fun, contained Westwood's trademarked live video cutscenes, and great gameplay. The AI was smart and adaptive. They wouldn't just keep sending the units to be slaugtered, they looked for weak points in your defenses and hammered it home.
The story gave choices as to whether or not to help a potential ally, and boosted storyline replayability.
As a tribute to the games durability, there are mods that allow it to work on 64-bit systems (something that was very rare at the time of the game's creation), and widescreed mods (not just rare, but basically non-existant). Amazing game, I think I may go play it right now.