There is only war

I've tried Dawn of War 2 last weekend as it was on sale over at Steam. I was contemplating whether it would be worth it as I've seen in videos and read in reviews that it wasn't like the first DoW and even less than Company of Heroes. In skirmish / multiplayer mode, the game is like the old skirmish modes with no buildings. It's more of a tactical capture the flag game than a real time strategy game.

In the campaign mode, I've read that it would be repetitive and I guess they're right. You have a set amount of units and usually at the end of the map, you get a boss battle. The items dropped are somewhat random and it's your choice on how to upgrade your squads. Even though it is repetitive, I find it addicting making your squad stronger and getting better weapons and armor. With no base building, I can get why they can't vary the missions much.

This game has got me hooked with it's awesome visual style. I like CoH but the world of Warhammer is far more interesting to me. I like to see my Force Commander cutting up orcs while my Tactical Marines blast away with their bolters. I like seeing the Ork bosses charge in with his hammer. The ork boss swings and hits the commander which sends the commander flying.

Yet if one looks at the meat of the game, it's pretty lean. CoH is still the game which keeps me full. If I wanted to play a simpler sort of skirmish, the Tales of Valor expansion has several missions called operations which are basically simpler fights as you just control units and build them.

I now just plan to wait and see any future expansions Relic plans for DoW2. I hope they do add a bit more variation in both the single player and the multiplayer skirmish mode.