What quickly becomes apparent when you play this beta is that, this is not like Dawn Of War. Dawn Of War 2 is a departure in gameplay from the first game. Relic has often been quoted in interviews that their goal was to portray the brutal combat of warhammer 40k lore in the game. I think Dawn Of War 2 manages to do that. But it ruffles some feathers by removing/changing a lot of aspects from the first game.
Reduced Base Building
Relic in all its press releases of the game has always pointed out that they wanted to remove the whole farming and mining aspect of RTS games. They want you the player to get in on the battlefield and get right to the action.
This is reflected in the multiplayer game by a single structure for you to purchase and upgrade your tech. No more building other structures, all units are built from this one building.
While this may seem like they dumbed down the game, this is clearly not the case. Yes you don't manage your economy like most other rts's but they have fleshed out the skirmishes(battles) in the game to be more than just units countering other units(I'll get into that later).
You don't have to worry about being rushed because this structure takes forever to destroy and most starting units wont have the damage per shot needed to take it down quickly.
The Cast
You get to play as any one of the four different races(the single player will be entirely a Space Marine campaign) in Dawn of War 2 multiplayer, Space Marines, Orks, Eldar(space elves), and at long last the Tyranids chrashing the party. Damn party poopers! The Space Marines are probably the most balanced faction, with strong ranged and melee infantry(price of units are just a tad too expensive at the moment).
The orks have generally weaker units but melee units do high damage. The Eldar are a fragile race with strong ranged units. The Tyranids are a monstrous race that has low hit points and try to swarm over the opponent. These are not hard rules as these races have units that don't fall into the generalisation of its race.
Is it an RPG?
Dawn Of War 2 introduces the whole concept of Heroes into this series. Each faction has three different type of heroes(which actually sounds like an extensions of the military doctrine idea from Company of Heroes).
Each faction will have its own bunch of heroes with its own role. For instance Space Marines get an offensive, defensive(healer) and support(engineer) class.Each race has its own unique bunch of hero class that vary slighty. These heroes are less prominent than say Warcraft 3's heroes, but they do level up and you get to equip them with wargear to improve their stats and give them extra abilites.
You still use these heroes to compliment your play style, so if you're a more defensive player, you might go with the techmarine to build turret to give some covering fire. If your heroes die, you get to resurrect them for an amount of requisition point(that gets cheaper with time).
The Economy
No farming or mining in Dawn Of War 2. In fact there hasn't been a farming or mining mechanic in most Relic games (Company of Heroes and even Dawn of War). Dawn Of War 2 takes the same mechanic of capturing points that give you your resources to get new units.
These points are out there on the battlefield and not in your base. To win the economic game(and the game in the end) you need to go out there and capture these points. There are requisition point, power nodes and victory points. Requisition and power nodes are necessary for your research, upgrades and unit purchases. Victory points are vital to winning the game as they drain the points off your opponents pool of victory points.
You can't really turtle your captured points in Dawn Of War 2. You can reinforce your power nodes but they get destroyed really fast. Using your engineer class hero like the techmarine, you can buil turrets to help secure points, but these are quite expensive and points spent on these are points not spent on upgrading your units and purchasing new units.
This leads to this wild goose chase(at times) as you chase the enemy that is trying to recap a point from you. This is not that fun and is more apparent in 1v1 mathces as you need to cover all points yourself. It puts further emphasis on placing your units in the most effective position(I'll get to the tactical aspect later).
Get To Cover!
Cover has been a feature much touted by Relic for this sequel. Your units take cover behind objects in the world. Behind cover, they take less damage and are harder to unsettle.
Your units will intelligently jump for cover when under attack(just like in Company Of Heroes)and you should move your units into cover almost all of the time to avoid being ambushed by a deeply entrenched opponent.
This leads me to the point that Dawn Of War 2 is not like Company Of Heroes in that, it is not entirely about ranged combat. There are many powerful melee units. This means that your units in cover will probably be closed down by melee units quickly and remove whatever advantage cover gave you.
This will require you to find bottlenecks to avoid being flanked. Not really an easy thing with the available maps in the multiplayer Beta.
Technology And All Those Snazzy Stuff
Because base building has been streamlined, tech is no longer handled by building structures but is just simplified with a simple three tiered tech research. You do all your research from your main base and as soon as you have researched them, you can build the units assigned to that tier.
All your units have upgradable options too like adding more powerful or specialised weapons or adding a squad leader(increases effectiveness of squad). There is a lot of clicking about as you need to upgrade each squad separately.
It's Real Pretty With Ponies And Rainbows
The game without a doubt is gorgeous. The environments look like you're on an alien planet and with fancy little effects like cloud shadows etc. Units look bold and bulky like Warhammer 40k units should and animate well.
It's an absolute thrill to send your assault marines flying in with their jetpacks to scewer the enemy with their battle saws. The whole presentation looks like an imagination of a littleboys futuristic world come to life. A futuristic world with lots of blood, gore, and warhammer 40k toys(okay action figures) alive.
It's About The Tactics Stupid!
Dawn of War 2 really isn't focused on the strategic aspect of a Real Time Strategy game, but it puts heavy emphasis on tactics. Squads that are under suppresive fire move a lot slower and you can retreat units by hitting the retreat button(there is no morale in DoW2 so you must control units under heavy fire to retreat them manually).You want to put the opponents unit in the cone of fire of your heavy gunners and avoid the zone yourself. Squad tactics, battle tactics, it's all about tactics. In fact it should be called a Real Time Tactics game.
Sure, I'm probably being a little unfair. Yeah there is definetely some strategy. Which point are you going to capture, which one to hold, which one to reinforce with units to defend. But the point is, it has all been watered down to these smaller strategic decisions.
My Final Take
In conclusion, Dawn Of War 2 will probably cater to a specific set of strategy gamers and frustrate others. It is just a very different strategy game and Relic took huge risks completely revamping the series.
I'm not against innovation and I applaud them for trying to do something new. But I can't help but to feel that Dawn of War 2 will divide many people. You will either love it or hate it. In between that is just a very confused group not knowing what the hell happened to their beloved Dawn Of War series.
The game is not a flexible game. You need to be an uber micro god. If you love to micro your units in Starcraft, you will love this game. For the rest of you who like a more macro approach to battles(the group select crowd), you will not like this game.
A strategy game shouldn't force people to play it in a certain manner, it should allow people to play the way they want to. Games like Supreme Commander, Sins of A Solar Empire, even the old Starcraft manages to cater to whatever type of strategy gamer you are.
You could play it more macro and still be competent or you can choose to micro units more. Dawn Of War 2 makes no qualms about pushing you to play the way it is supposed to be played.
The constant shift of capture points and unceasing action in a game might put off a few people, but if you are into an action centric RTS, this might be what you are looking for. It looks like Relic will be releasing new maps and content(war gear) post release that will keep you occupied.
PS : GFW Live ought to get their game right. It's a pile of mess right now.
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