Ever felt a bit "Blood for the Blood God"?
Space Marine is a decent game that captures the power and skill of its titular heroes - Titus carves through Orks with bloody swipes of his chainsword and quickly turns to gunning down Shoota Boyz with a lethal volley from his bolter with its equally impressive bark. You feel like the Space Marines of the background - capable of facing down any opponent in any number and coming out of the other side...you are a God of War.
Which conveniently brings me to the comparisons to the likes of GoW and Gears of War. It really is neither, if anything, I'd compare it to a linear, more combat-oriented version of Just Cause 2 - There is a lot of running around with limited scope for health renewal while often juggling various weapons in the process to get the best result. But even then, that's crowbarring it in quite badly - Space Marine is its own game that just doesn't fit the mould others are trying to force it into.
The gameplay is solid and satisfying, if a little repetitive. Progress is good and fights are generally short and very messy with your captain cutting his way through the hordes with deft skill. It's gloriously violent and really gets across the brutality of the universe that neither the tabletop or the Dawn of War series manages to give feeling to. The game is always giving you a lot of feedback in terms of combos and what damage you're taking...even if I'd prefer the health bar at the bottom of your screen.
My main complaint is the checkpoints - they can be badly spaced out or placed badly, resulting in you incessantly having to pick up the same upgrade over and over at key points...when placing it after that would have been more sensible.
This is no 8.5 or 9.0 game - it lacks the depth or variety you would expect from that...if anything, that's the fault of the glory boy space marines - a character that couldn't quite take so much punishment could really make this interesting, especially if combined with a plot that's not the overdone "Orks followed by Chaos" recipe.
But like the initial installments of both the Dawn of War and Dawn of War II series, Space Marine shows promise - further developed, it could be as strong as DoW: Dark Crusade compared to Dawn of War.
But really, this a game for when you want to add a few more skulls to the Skull Throne...