Amazing attention to detail and loads of content gives excellent value for money
But thankfully the hassle was worth it, as this is one of the most spectacular RTS games I have ever played!
First off you will notice resource gathering and building is excluded from the game, with an exception from being able to lay mines and build turrets during fights. Instead it is more like a squad based action RPG. At first I was quite disappointed, since building structures and maintaining resources well is in fact something I enjoy much about RTS games. But, in fact I was pleasantly surprised by how well it works.
Instead of building new units, you control a few but very powerful leaders. Similar to earlier games each leader have followers, and together they operate as one unit. If all the warriors in your squad are killed, the leader will remain on the ground until revived by one of the other squads. You only lose the game if all squads are killed, and even then you get to keep all the experience points gained up until then and you can try again without any penalties except wasting time. Since you cannot save the game in the middle of a level, you will
Although you do not build any structures in the game, you can capture strategic points. The most important being teleporters which can bring reinforcements by replacing fallen soldiers in your squad when you are close to it. You can also capture strategic points, which are usually well defended, but will boost your squads, and these points will remain yours if you revisit the same location later.
There are many locations and also several planets for you to visit to rid the world for an alien threat. You need to revisit locations many times, but it does not get old as the enemy are very varied and will gradually be tougher to match your current level. I found the game is balanced perfectly, and it is rarely too hard or too easy, keeping you on the edge of your seat most of the time.
The game also has a tremendous attention to detail. Every weapon has different effects, almost everything is destructible or at least will show some serious signs of damage when you fight. Your weapons looks awesome, they feel extremely powerful as they rip through hordes of aliens or demolish huge stone walls. I have never seen any other game with more brutal feel to the battle scenes, it's really a hellish, bloody battle.
The graphics is great, even with the camera zoomed all the way in, you will appreciate some amazing attention to detail. There's tons of special effects and there seems to be always some new things to discover.
On top of all this, the game has a tremendous depth to it. You level up your characters to improve their stats, but need to do so carefully to match each individual leaders personality. One leader may be optimized for close combat for example, and should spend his experience points enhancing this. Basically the leaders allow you to play with different strategies, including close combat, ranged combat, stealth and demolition. You can equip each leader with a long range of additional abilities and weapons which can be tailored for each mission. So, plenty of strategy involved .
Talking about strategy, you will need to take great care of where you attack, find the right cover and use your special weapons wisely. Different leaders also have different abilities, like healing others, sprinting or jumping, and you need to use them carefully to succeed. Running and gunning wont work for long.
The missions are quite basic. They are mostly all the same and varies between destroying a set of targets, like enemy bases or hard core boss-creatures, or protecting some strategic points from destruction. Highlights are some awesome boss battles, where you need to take on tough boss'es with special powers which requires different strategies. Some of them are really tough, and may take as much as twenty minutes to tear down (I played on a pretty hard difficulty setting. There are many settings to match most peoples skill).
Although the variation in gameplay is rather lacking when it comes to the missions you get, it does not matter. The game has a winning formula of fierce combat, strategy and character development. Since a lot of the game levels seems to be partly computer generated, you will find a lot of content, and it is a game that will take quite long to complete. You have plenty of options on what area you want to play on and in what order, and you will be rewarded based on how well you play, so the replay value is quite good.
There's a story in the game. Even though its not the reason to play the game, it is in fact not bad as it is based on the Warhammer universe which represents a ton of material and lore that has been developed for long time.