"Different from the first but still has that strategic edge to it as you'd expect from any RTS"
As I sit here I'd love to say that I actually know the story behind this game but in truth I don't, basically through the campaign side of the game you'll play as the Space Marines or to be precise a squad, this squad starts off small but as you progress through the campaign you'll have a couple more. The game focuses on upgrading your squad members, flanking the enemy and making good use of the new cover system.
The main difference between the second game and the first is that there is no more base building it's been completely removed, now when I first heard this I was very disappointed as I would think of this as completely removing the strategic side of the game. Back to the campaign, most of the missions will consist of going to different planets and taking them over, possibly defeating a boss at the end of each mission, to be quite honest It's can get quite boring near the end of the campaign as you see yourself doing the same thing over and over.
Have no fear for there is Co-op! ok well don't get your hopes up, the sound of you and a friend plowing through hordes of orks, eldar and tyranids may seem fun but after a couple of missions you'll find that since your friend now controls half of your squad you feel allot more vulnerable, depending on how good of a player your friend is you may find the game allot harder.
So to round it off a typical mission consists of going to point A to point B, taking out bases or defenses in the way and when arriving at point B defeating a boss and moving on.
Multiplayer
Now this is where the game really takes off like a rocket, I love the multiplayer side of this game, at the moment you can only have either 1v1 head to head battles or team battles 3v3, you each start off with your main base, one defense structure and a commander unit, each race has three commanders usually consisting of Offence, Defense or Support.
There are two gamemodes, Annihilate and Victory Point Control, let's start with Victory Point Control (I have actually forgot wether this is the correct name so please forgive me for that) in which there are a certain amount of points that appear as circles with stars in them on your map, the objective is quite basic control all these points to win, I don't have much experience with this gamemode as to be honest, I dislike it.
Annihilate is my favorite gamemode and the simplest, basically you have to destroy the enemy's base, capturing resources to make the games currency and build more units or to upgrade your commander. Every time you kill an enemy or support your team mates you build up a bar on the right of your screen, as this fills you gain special abilities all different for each race, for example the Orks have an ability called 'Roks' which you gain an AOE cursor and depending on where you place it giant rocks/meteorites will rain from the sky.
As with the Campaign if your commander/squad falls in battle they will simply...just fall you can get your team mates to help you to your feat or in multiplayer you have the option to spend some resources to instantly revive him.
The Verdict
So in the end the second game is quite different from the first but still has that strategic edge to it as you'd expect from any RTS game, Campaign is good and fun for a while but does get repetitive and a bit dull. Multiplayer is fast paced and fun and after playing it since the release date I have yet to have the same kind of match yet. The turn of the battle can change with the simplest of actions.
Thankyou for reading ;)