Dawn of War II, Both better and worse than DoW Options

[Tanegar]

First, the good. Dawn of War II feels a lot more like 40k than Dawn of War did. The first one had its moments, but at the end of the day felt more like a generic sci-fi RTS dummied up to look like 40k. I can't really put my finger on why DoW2 does better in this regard, and YMMV. Also, the graphics are great. A marked improvement over DoW, and even Supreme Commander (my previous high-water mark for graphics in an RTS), although I doubt DoW2's graphics would look anything like as good on the scale of Supreme Commander.

Then, the bad. The unit AI is atrocious, and the primary means of taming it is gone. In DoW you could manually set a level of aggressiveness for each squad: either they wouldn't move from their position even when getting hammered, would pursue enemies a short distance and then return, or pursue any foe who came near as long as they could still see it. In Dawn of War II, that last option is the only option. If an enemy squad picks a fight, starts losing, and runs away, your squad will happily chase them across the entire map, more likely than not right into the guns of other enemy squads, and there is apparently no way to curtail this behavior other than by personally checking on each squad every minute or so like an overprotective mother. The level of micromanagement necessary both renders moot any complaints about tiny armies (and they are tiny; if you have more than half a dozen squads at any time you must be churning out cannon fodder) and saps much of the fun from the game.

Dawn of War II's primary draw for me has been the Last Stand gametype, wherein you and two other players control one hero apiece and try to survive waves of AI attackers.

Bottom line: As an RTS, I give it 5/10. As a multiplayer third-person action game, 8/10. Make of that what you will.