The best RTS of all time. Perfectly made, perfectly delivered. One of the best games of all time right here.
The gameplay is much more in depth compared to other RTS', and it pays off greatly. The core gameplay is just like any other RTS, move units around, attack, build bases, defences etc, etc. But what differentiates Company of Heroes from other RTS' are the little things that it implements. One prime example of this is the cover system. When an infantry squad is placed behind a fence or in a crater, a little green or yellow shield is placed next to the unit icon. A yellow shield means that the unit is in light cover, and takes less damage than standing out in the open, but they are still easy targets. A green shield means that the unit is in heavy cover, and is much more protected from enemy fire. While cover does help to protect your units, they can easily be denied its benefits from a number of things, like being flanked, or having a grenade thrown into the cover. This means that you need to be constantly aware of enemies flanking or using grenades, and should try to exploit this and use such tactics yourself.
The very important resource management is like Relic's other RTS Dawn of War, but instead of having just 2 resources, there are 3, and they are Manpower, Munitions, and Fuel. Manpower is your primary resource throughout the game, and is mainly used to purchase new units and structures. Munitions are used for upgrades and special abilities, and aren't used for producing squads or vehicles. Fuel is the last resource, and is used in conjunction with manpower to buy new vehicles and build structures. All these resources are obtained by controlling various points on the map, except for manpower, which is obtained based on how many troops you have on the battlefield, e.g. More troops = less manpower earned. This helps to reduce 'spamming', and makes you focus on using the units you have to the best of their ability.
You can be denied access to your resource points if the opposing team captures a point which is between your resource point and your base, leaving it 'out of supply'. This leads to even more strategic gameplay, as you try to defend your vital resource points while trying to cut off your enemy's supplies.
Company of Heroes single-player puts you in charge of Able Company, as you land on the shores of Normandy in France on D-Day, to the very liberation of France from Axis forces. It is historically accurate, as many WWII enthusiasts like me would notice. While the mission objectives tend to be slightly repetitive, the missions themselves do differentiate themselves from each other. They are more like puzzles than straight forward battles: you have to decide which units you're going to use and how you're going to use them, as mass rushing doesn't work in this game at all. Some missions involve infiltrating, while others involve defending a certain point, and others again involve hunting. Completing certain objectives will either give you a boost in the game, like supplies, weapons, or troops, or will earn you a medal which can be viewed under the rewards tab before you setup a game. This keeps you always trying to fulfil the extra couple of objectives. The only negative thing to say about the single-player campaign is that it doesn't let you play as Germans. Although I would've really liked a German campaign, Company of Heroes still makes up for it in the great American campaign.
While single-player is great, multi-player is where Company of Heroes really shines. It pits player against player, Americans vs. Germans, to battle it out in two modes. The first one, Annihilation, is your basic 'destroy enemy base' mode. However, the second, and by far the most popular mode, is called Victory Point Control. It is similar to the Battlefield series' ticket system, where capturing a majority of points leads to the enemy's points reducing. Once the enemy's points get to 0, you win. The only way to reduce the enemy's points is by holding more Victory Points than them. This makes online multi-player matches, and even skirmish matches, an exciting and nerve racking experience. The matchmaking system is a very good one, as it pits people with very similar experience against each other. This leads to the fairest match possible.
If you're not feeling ready for multi-player yet, or want some practice, skirmish is the way to go. Skirmish offers everything multi-player except for the human opponents. You can either choose to go up against Easy, Normal, Hard, or Insane bots. The bots do a good job of warming you up to human players, but beware skirmish first timers; you'll be surprised how good even easy bots are.
The graphics, as anyone can notice as soon as they start playing, are the most detailed and most dazzling graphics in any RTS' to date. The way the characters, units and environments are detailed is absolutely amazing. Even when going up close, the units look incredible considering it's an RTS. One of the only things that slightly lets down the graphical splendour is when panning out to see the environment, trees which are outside the map boundaries are 2-D, and doesn't look as pretty as other trees in the game. But this is just me being nitpicky because there is very little about the graphical detail to negatively criticise.
Overall, if you're looking for an amazing experience from an amazing game, and for a low price ($14.99 USD on Steam), definitely get Company of Heroes. And if you happen to like RTS' or WWII, all the better.