Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (PC)

...following the more traditional warhammer paints. Some colours are metallic and gives a shiny appearance on the battlefield.

Overall many improvements leading to a far more tactical game requiring thinking on peoples part, while still remaining 'newbie' friendly.
Graphics are very good especially on highest 'ultra' . However this usually requires a 64bit system.   ... more

Honestly I loved dawn of war, and most of its expansions. However dawn of war 2 is how dawn of war should have been in my eyes.

Where to start ? well lets go with the story. Personally I find the campaign to be greatly superior to the previous games. Each character has his own personality and shows throughout the game. The plot is simple yet works very well, each race has a very good reason being in the campaign.
In the campaign you command your commander and 3 additional squads. You may swap some of the squads out for different ones between missions. Allowing you to field the units that are most suitable for the mission at hand.
There are 6 units in total.

Force commander - this is essentially you, and obviously you must command every battle.
Tarkus - your tactical squad commander, very diverse unit and highly recommended.
Cyrus - Your scout commander, can use sniper rifles and shotguns. Mines, det packs aswell as stealth.
Avitus - your heavy weapons (devastators) may be equiped with anti infantry or anti tank weapons. Amazing once gains terminator armour.
Thaddeus - your assault marines, great in close combat and fast. their jump ability knocks foes down.
Dreadnaught - A great addition to any force, whether closecombat or ranged this unit is brilliant.

The best thing about the campaign however is the fact that it plays more like an RPG as much as it does RTS. Each squad has a leader which can be outfitted with a good number of different weapons and armour, extra equipment and of course your commander gets special items. This allows for a very diverse army allowing you to customise each squad for each opponent.

For example, equip a flamer on your tactical squads and deal with massed infantry.
Or equip melta bombs to deal with that gravtank.

As you play and use each squad you gain experiance which in turn gains you levels. 20 being the highest. As you level you gain stat points which you can place in several different attributes.
Stamina - increase this for overall more health and health regeneration
ranged - increasing this increases the average damage done by ranged weapons
Strength - increase this to make you deal more damage in close combat
will - increasing this gives more energy for abilities and increased energy regen.

While you add stat points in different attributes you cannot maximise all four, unless you use a mod. While adding stat points you should be aware that as you place a certain number of points there are markers which once reached give that commander/squad an ability. For example. The force commander can gain an ability which allows him to deal killing blows to most enemies while using battlecry (another one of his abilities).
another example would be Thaddeus gains terminator honors. This allows him to equip the awesome terminator armour with thunderhammer and stormshield.

Using these abilities in sync can make missions alot easier, knowing which to use and when can save your force.

Honestly however one of the best reasons to play campaign would be with a friend. Coop lets you use tactics that some people cant manage when in control of 4 squads. You each control 2 squads. Communication via 'games for windows live' can be done via microphone for that faster response.

Multiplayer in my eyes can be fun. It purely depends on your opponent. The matchmaking system is not as good as it was in beta which is strange but relic are working very hard to fix many bugs and issues.
The great thing about multiplayer now is the ranked system has a small cosmetic reward. As you play games you gain experience which ranks you up. (this is different from trueskill which is how you are matched up) As you gain ranks at certain points your army gets a cosmetic 'upgrade'. For example the scouts gain an eagle on their chest and eventually cloaks.
Some are better than others with tyranids severely lacking in any major 'upgrades' most being colour change.

For those not interested in ranking up there is custom, which allows you to pick what map and you can even play bots (AI) though once you gain a small experiance the bots become repetitive and boring.

There are currently 2 main map sizes, 3v3 and 1v1. Hopefully more maps will be added in the future but currently thats how it stands. No 2v2 maps are available and 4v4 has been removed.
There are two gametypes. annihilate and victory point.
The first being self explainitory the second being a form of king of the hill. You hold points making your opponents points drop from 500. The first to reach 0 loses.

Main gameplay changes in this are that cover is a priority. Being in cover gives a massive bonus.
Hard counters such as rocketlaunchers and plasma guns work very well against what they need to.
Less units. Can be seen as a negative but allows for more tactical gameplay in my opinion.
The army painter has less colours following the more traditional warhammer paints. Some colours are metallic and gives a shiny appearance on the battlefield.

Overall many improvements leading to a far more tactical game requiring thinking on peoples part, while still remaining 'newbie' friendly.
Graphics are very good especially on highest 'ultra' . However this usually requires a 64bit system.  

...less