It's part of the best there is when it comes to the RTS gendra. Great pacing, but it's even more fun to watch.
First thing's first. If you are a Warhammer 40k fan, look no further. The guys over at Relic and THQ did a superb job at bringing the tabletop game to the RTS gendra. Sounds like heresey to many of you I'm sure, but they prooved it could be done. You will find all your favorite units in there with their unique abilities. Heck, you can even paint your armies if you wish - yes, even with preset colors like Bolt Gun metal and Bad Moon Yellow.
For a gamer, this is a match made in heaven that worked. Relic is well known for their talent at making beautiful dynamic looking RTS games (think Company of Heroes and Homeworld) while Games Workshop knows all about strategic warfare games. I'll be brutaly honest, I suck at this game. There are warhammer concepts that I'm just not familliar enough with, plus I hate playing online against people who would rather play cheap. Still, just looking at the models and zooming in at the battles NEVER gets old. I'm sure I would have stored this game away a long time ago if it where not for that fact alone, and again, it's only better because they just happen to be Space Marines.
It's my experience that the Space Marines are the most vanilla/basic stretegy faction there is in the game. Think of them as the Ken and Ryu of Dawn of War. The Imperial guard is definitly a contender for best looking faction though their plethora of different units need some getting used to. If you don't like world war II esque looking characters then the new Tau will do the job for sure. The Necrons seem to be the easiest to grasp as their mechanics of play are very simple yet effective if not devestating.
Any fan of RTS games who has never picked up a DOW game should not even think about this. The fact that you don't need the previous games to play with the previous factions means that you are getting pretty much all the games packed into one low priced package. The only thing that you will be missing is the said armies while playing online (you won't be able to select them but you can still play against them). Other than that, the past single player modes where mostly ignored by everyone. You won't miss much.