Feels sort of like Dark Crusade with a makeover
Dark Crusade's success lay in the amount of new features it brought. A larger, Risk-style campaign with commander customisation and two new races. What has Soulstorm brought? An even larger, still Risk-style campaign retaining commander customisation with more or less the same upgrades and two new races. Yawn. The only feature that's really outstanding and unique from Winter Assault and Dark Crusade is the introduction of air units, which is one of the two only things that was carrying the hype, the second being the new races.
The initial feeling this expansion brought to a DoW fan such as myself is, honestly, disappointment. To me it just feels lazy, and this impression is not eased by blatant lazy copying of unit noises and bugs for things that really shouldn't have bugs. Every building for the new Sisters of Battle race has the same selection sound as their Space Marine counterpart. When capturing a relic, the shaft on the floor does not open and so the flag rises up through solid material making the whole procedure look buggy and unfinished. Speaking of which, how the hell did that happen? In all the previous games the hatch on a relic would open, how did Ironlore manage to screw it up if it needed no improvement?
Obviously no one wants to feel disappointed in something they just spent £30 on, but its hard to keep trying to convince yourself after several skirmishes without descending into full blown denial. I won't lie, this expansion is indeed a let down, especially considering it was expected to bring so much to the table AND be the final installment in the series. Here's hoping that they at least release a patch or two to smooth the gameplay. Overall it's a good game and I've still had hours of fun playing it, and I don't think that it was a complete waste of money. There is just still a lot to be desired.