A good game dissapointedly handicapped by bad developer decisions and a broken multiplayer interface and engine.
Dawn of War 2 started as a good idea, as a fan of Warhammer 40,000 I have enjoyed playing games from relic. The concept is there, the potential is there, Warhammer 40k makes great games with some effort from developers.
Graphics? This game scores high, its not the best, but it looks good for an RTS.
Gameplay? Yeah, its there, it's good, multiplayer games are fun and great, IF you can get there.
Now, single player. This is an interesting part, this game is an RTS, and the developers have opted for a mock squad RPG hack em up campaign. When I buy an RTS game, or think of an RTS game in general, you would expect to have a REAL-TIME STRATEGY campaign aswell right? I guess, this is where relics innovative thinking comes in. Trash the RTS campaign for the RTS game and give us a lack-lustre role playing game. The story is poorly implemented, poorly written and hard to swallow because of the nature of the campaigns mechanics, sure, I guess we can have roughly 11 space marines stop an Ork Waaaagh! A tyranid splinter fleet and an eldar incursion. What it lacks is a good reason for this, many enemies are completely overpowered and you will go through a whole chapter of reinforcements before completing it. Not only that, it doesnt deliver the feel of the 40k universe, the story just doesnt cut it, in my opinion.
Gameplay wise the campaign itself is also poor. You will have 4 squads, from a choice of 5-6, and you will shoot, hack or spam abilities through mobs of Eldar, Orks, Tyranids, or Chaos (for Chaos rising), you will collect wargear, then you will go to you squad loadout menu.
Then you will do it all again, and again, and then some more for good luck.
Repetive, boring, simple, stupid. Way to go relic. There is little thinking involved, more clicking then strategy, and there will be weapons that deliver one hit GG's to your squads.
Chaos Rising adds one element, do you want your squads corrupted, or not corrupted, while you do the same thing as normal? If you dont want to be corrupted, simply fail to save those scouts, or put on bad armour. If you dont want to be corrupted, you better save those scouts, or your corrupted anyway.
So, not corrupted seems harder, because if you fail you will be corrupted, so corrupted seems like an easy way to play, simply fail!
The engine for this game makes good gameplay, but it too, is unfortunately broken. The cover system seems unimportant, yeah, in a small firefight you will notice it, but anything larger and you simply wont care. It seems to prefer close combat, because terrain will hinder your units from shooting even if you have a clear line of sight - call it a glitch or a bug, it still happens. Your units missing is irritating, its random whether you will hit or not, meaning that in some cases, blistering firepower will tear you apart, in other cases, the same firepower will tickle you, completely unreliable. There are small balance issues, like close combatant swarms, the addition of tyranids is interesting, consideirng you only get 3 space marines in a squad, those bolters do nothing to the swarm, your heavy bolter will not fare much better.
Usually, the game is alright, its fun, fast paced, and addictive. But once you see those little broken fragments of the engine, its hard not to wonder whether you were beaten because you were out-played by your opponent or the game just worked against you?
Last Stand is another mode the game introduces. It's great fun, but like everything else, never met potential. There isn't a story you can possibly imagine for every race suddenly working together. But lore aside, the gameplay is rewarding, as you earn more wargear and beat up wave after wave. There isn't anything fancy though, how more awesome would it be if there were some really cool defendable positions? Sites where you could hold out in some cool manner against the horde. Alas, no, its a simple circle arena with cover that will be destroyed (bombardments will cause cover to appear all over the map and furthur hinder shooting).
Teamplay is a strong point and multiplayer experiences are rewarding. It's not helped that its next to impossible to get to the good stuff in the centre because of a next to impervious outer shell, which in this case is the multiplayer system.
The game functions on Windows Live, the console system for the Xbox 360. Yes, it is VERY annoying trying to use a CONSOLE system on a PC game. Luckily, steam can compensate for the majority of areas. Unfortunately, it cant compensate for matchmaking. Almost every friend I game with will complain about this, matchmaking is horrible, most of the time, you will not be able to connect to friend, and they wont be able to connect to you. The game is demanding of PC specs and internet, my PC easily runs this, but for some reason the game doesn't like my net, or anyone elses, for that matter. If you find a game where everyone (or at least one, enough to ruin the game) doesnt drop because of their computer or internet then you scored lucky. Lag, and drop outs, and connection problems are as common as Orks. It is the worst system I have ever had to deal with on an RTS, besides from Company of Heroes, surprisingly (or not) both are Relic games.
So what do we have? We have a good game, that had good potential, hindered by bad developer decisions and poor multiplayer systems.
If you manage to get to a part of this game you enjoy (yeah, there have been games that I have found very enjoyable), savour it, make it last. It comes as rarely as a Black Crusade.