Truly a standout RTS.
Company of Heroes starts with the RTS skeleton. Get resources, build units, kill enemy. Next, it takes those elements and blows your mind with them.
Resources: Basically nothing more that flagpoles scattered over the battlefield they can give you manpower, ammunition, or fuel. When one of these flagpoles are taken, you take control of that territory. All territories must be connected to your HQ by other territories in order to provide their resources.
Units: Not a wide selection, but different enough to make you not notice. A mortar team is nothing like a sniper which is nothing like paratroopers which is nothing like a machine gun team and so on. Units also have special abilities to aid in their quest. Infantry can through sticky bombs, paratroopers can upgrade to bazookas, and mortar teams can shoot smoke canisters. Kill Enemy: Most of the game involves using your different units to best destroy the multitude of superior German tanks. This is no small task as simple bullets are ineffective. The location of your troops is important. Unlike traditional RTS games where units amble about and then hit the enemy with an ax until dead, troops in Company of Heroes can interact with the things around them. Taking cover is vital to winning a firefight, and having a machine gun team in a building nearby can be a real blessing.
Here is the main reason I love this game. In games like Age of Empires or Warcraft, fights last 30 seconds and you either lose all your units to engage in a slow speed chase across the map to get behind your towers. Those of you who played Dark Colony should remember that in that game, units didn't die as quickly as they do in AoE or Warcraft. If you heard "Units Under Attack" you could look and see what was happening and choose whether or not to send reinforcements. That is the operative word "reinforcements". Even though DC was a sub par game, all was not lost if a few units came under attack from a larger force. You could send other units in and help out. In warcraft there is no such thing, If the fight is any distance from your base it's too bad so sad. Watch as your units crawl across the map and just as you close in your last unit dies, the shroud closes in, and you can't find the enemy force for all the tea in China. In Company of Heroes, attacking does not mean you hit someone. Your units shoot at the enemy and hitting them is determined by how much cover they have and such. If a scouting party comes under attack, you can have them jump inside a building and dig in until help arrives. A unit coming under attack does not mean "Well, that things a goner" anymore. You can actually choose to aid a unit in need and make it worthwhile.