A whole new war... craft.
Following what proved to be one of Starcraft's greatest strengths, Blizzard developed 4 races that feel completely different as you play them. They're a little bit closer to each other than Starcraft radically different ones, but still play differently, and that's a great feature. Also, they decided to keep the great storytelling alive, and while the story seems a bit homologous to it's predecessor's one, it's still a good story.
They decided to take a departure from the pure RTS genre, however, with great results. They added some RPG features in the form of heroes, and how they develop new abilities and get new items. While Warcraft III is by all means an RTS game, it still has a lot of refreshing features.
Which bring me to the real downside of the story. As they developed the RPG elements, they also decided it would be better to have small armies that you had to micromanage. Yes, Warcraft III is a game where people with better micromanagement skills will certainly win.
Despite that, it's a great game I can recommend to anyone out there!