Instead of having:

1 Game with 3 races and 12 missions each w/ full multiplayer

+ An Expansion w/ new multiplayer content and 12 more missions for each race

+ A 2nd Expansion again w/ new multiplayer content and 12 final missions for each race

You're getting:

1 Game w/ the entire game dedicated to 1 race (36 missions) w/ Full multiplayer

+ An expansion dedicated to another race w/ new multiplayer content

+ An expansion dedicated to the final race w/ new multiplayer content

The only problem I can see with this is that new players will be raped online if they try the other races since they don't have a campaign to work with. Blizzard can combat this with a tutorial but other than that this shouldn't be that big of a issue. Looking at the gameplay, it doesn't seem like the mechanics have changed much and honestly, anyone who loves Starcraft (bulk of buyers) should be more than familiar with both the core Zerg and Protoss style of play.

As long as Blizzard delivers on its promise for content and doesn't massacre the pricing, its fairly reasonable. I would rather have them pool time into creating an in depth single-player which was the orignal starcraft's weakness than hastily creating a game with the majority of its focus on Multi-player.

Consider:

Half-Life 2 and the episodes

WarHammer 40k: Dawn of War and its endless expansion packs

Company Of Heroes and the coming expansions

This isn't a new trend

Runescape had its merits. Seeing people here compare it to modern games leads me to assume that the average gamespot user is too young to remember it, you just don't treat old games in that fashion. While you may not agree with the gameplay, Runescape did reinforce some interesting aspects into the MMO genre. The focus on trade skills that was almost absent in MMO's like cooking, fishing, mining, and their appliance to the economy was very refreshing and I'm sure there are some modern games (WoW) who borrowed a bit from that concept. Its one of those games where you had to be around during its primes; which was within roughly 2 years of its release.

Comparing the graphics to a more modern game is just silly. Its bad enough that it was java based, but it was also released in 2001; cut it some slack.

Also there is a reason why people still play the game and its a simple one. They enjoy it. Its not rocket science folks, it is just a simple opinion. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it taboo for everyone else. Granted, I don't like the game, but it did reinforce a little innovation in its genre and I'll give it some credit in that.

If you can get past the graphics, there are a bunch of games made by small time developers that are phenomenal, Exile 3: Ruined World ( 1998 ) to name one.

For recommended settings, its pretty modest to be honest. It may not have the hardware performance - graphics ratio of Crysis, but if you upgraded your PC in the past 2-3 years you should be able to play this without a problem. 3+ Gigs of ram has been standard for almost 2 years already.

The 18 gigabyte install is the only thing that raises an eyebrow. I wonder if they did a sloppy job porting it over or if the data size is justified. Fortunately, Terabyte hard drives aren't so uncommon anymore.