In a nutshell this is CoH, not a game.
Tales of Valor, Many teary eyed fans are complaining, and personally I think they are stupid. They are picking holes and don't realise what they have, they have CoH, there is nothing different about it, bar a few new things. However I can agree, Relic shouldn't have made this into a entirely new expansion, I'm sure this could have been a great patch.
Something I'd like to clear up before the proper review. Fans, you had a good warning there was going to be no new factions.
Now to the review.
Gameplay. Very easily described as, Company of Heroes, nothing has changed. Not a thing. Only really added and that's the direct fire, but I shall go over that on a topic of its own.
Visuals. Very easily described as, Company of Heroes, nothing has changed.
See a pattern? Well you should, because I'm reviewing this as the series as a whole, cause really this is an expansion. Not a game and should never be viewed that way. And personally, nothing is broken.
This is probably going to the shortest review I've done in my small new time thing in reviewing games, and really this is all that's needed to be said.
Direct fire, one of the new things added to the CoH series. And let me say it was an unexpected surprise. I was actually thinking alone the lines of first-person shooting. Personally that would rock, and it would balance itself out, because you can't control the rest of the map making the player cautious of this fact will prevent them hogging the tiger tank etc. But the feature we have is something… well unnecessary. It isn't helping, nor is it braking. It really isn't a new feature. Personally im going to leave it be because it hasn't broken anything, so there is no real reason to moan.
New-ish vehicles. Yes they override the old ones, but that doesn't break the game either. There is nothing wrong with them other than the fact that maybe you could just get them and use them. But I can see where Relic could be coming from. The new vehicles replace a vehicle of the same nature. No point in having two types of transport would there? And I would love to have a Kangaroo carrier any day :D it's easily the best lol. Anyway nothing is broken. Nothing to moan about.
The new campaigns. Personally I don't really care. I never really play campaigns in RTS's; I just want skirmishes and online matches with mates. I never really liked the fact you had to beat the previous campaign to get access to the new ones in the previous two games. And getting direct access to the new 3 is something I couldn't care anything for. So nothing is broken.
This new patch that has broken everything. It hasn't. That is all ;)
So to sum this up, this is Company of Heroes that we all know and love. OK the expansion is something that could have been much MUCH better but it isn't, not much we can do about that, but there would only be damage if it tampered with the game which it hasn't really. So I'm reviewing this game as a series as a whole, to review this alone could easily be given a bad score, but really this is something for people who have 1 or maybe both the game's both NEVER for a beginner. If you buy this extra, please own the originals, cause then it's really your own fault, for jumping into a series at the end. You wouldn't do that with a movie or a TV series, so don't do it with games. There's my tip of the day and pay heed to it.