Winter Assault tells a great war story with larger than life heroes and breathtaking science fiction carnage.
Objectives in mission are very clever and are clearly integrated into the story. One memorable mission had me draw the attention of a massively superior force, and once they're out of possition, fall back and manevour. Another was pure orc on orc fighting as your wannbe warboss tried to unite the greenskins under his banner. Or another where you power up the otherworldly guns of a smashed but somwhat functional titan. And yet another where I escorted or hunted a critical vehicle crew (depending on the side chosen).
Telling any kind of memorable story in gaming is a challenge. Doing it in an traditionally non-immersive genre like RTS makes it even more noteworthy.
Some of the maps are exceedingly ambitious in that 4 story driven scenarios, 1 per race, all coexist on the same level. These in particular are novel in that you can manually switch between races on the same side (eldar/humans versus orc/chaos). There is also a clear branch in the campaign flow where your choice in army dictates the last mission played. Way to overachieve LDs!
Imperial Guard are fun, playing more like swarm races than marines. Their uber-unit, the swollen Baneblade tank, is a sight to see. When combined with a unit of Leman Russ tanks (zero strategy units, they own everything that's not a god), imperial guard are "eastern front" slugging good 'ol boys. [s]The necrons make a guest appearance fielding two unit types, the monolith (think slightly easier avatar/bloodthirster) and the regular infantry which are incredibly tough. Not a full army, but a cool surprise.[/s]
Only negative was that my fitfully patched installed version of dawn of war caused problems with the autopatcher. Whatever version I ended up with couldn't load a save, though reinstalling everything fixed that.
On a production note: nice execution in pulling off the gold pack and expansion same day street. Not every publisher can do that.