Finally, I get my hands on the RTS-RPG, Dawn of War 2. It was everything I expected it to be.
My greatest praise for this game is its feel. You really do feel like a small, tactical army fighting to gain control of small settlements, and sometimes larger cities. The small scale of the battles makes them fast paced, and tense, without being overbearing except at boss battles, which is normal. The story, while linear, is compelling, as you try to figure out what exactly it is that is coming to invade the sector and kill everything to death, and keeps you interested in small doses. The missions themselves are awesome. Simple, yet somewhat dynamic objectives, short and to the point, and lots of banter as you go, giving taking the dullness out of those times when you're moving across the map.
The multiplayer plays like a combination of DotA and Dawn of War 1. You can either play 3v3 or 1v1 battles, which is kind of disappointing, but honestly, more than that would be ridiculous, and probably make the engine sweat. It is insanely fun to play. Due to the small maps, the pace is fast. Since there's no base building, you're never waiting for anything to build, just for things to be captured. And yes, I said no base building. This is macro lite, micro heavy. I love it. They took the leveling system from the single player, and condensed it. You capture requisition points for 'money', power plants for tech upgrades, and strategic points for 'victory points'. For the system, the multiplayer is everything I dreamed it would be.
The first big problem that I have with this game is purely cosmetic. I am really mad that I can't turn off, or at least turn down the particle effects. This was a blunder on Relic's part, because that's the main thing that makes this game demanding. My computer runs it at a comfortable 20fps, except when there are lots of rockets, orbital strikes, and movement going on. Also, the story is probably the weakest aspect of this RPG. Essentially, you're fighting off Eldar and Orks, only to find that the real threat is spoiler warning. Well, not really. Watch the extended trailer for this game, and read two paragraphs about the mythos, you'll know who the threat truly is. The game surprisingly doesn't suffer much for it, making up for the story with the sense of progression, and the interesting characters.
The bottom line is that this game was awesome. I'd give it a 10, if it had a better story, and a little bit more depth to it. The single-player was a bit too shallow, but it more than made up for that in the multiplayer. I have high hopes for Chaos Rising, coming sometime next year. March, I think. Also, I must mention, this game would be great on the Xbox 360. It plays enough like Halo Wars that it wouldn't be particularly hard to pull off. I give it a 9 out of 10.