Games Workshop sets new a standard for their 40k tactical games with Dawn of War. Chaos Gate was buggy and hard to play. Final Liberation was fun, but VERY buggy, and not really 40k. DoW is more like Warcraft, so the epoke of turn based game play is over. Actually, it feels a bit too much like Warcraft, C&C, etc., but who can resist when it takes place in the 40k universe? I know I can't..
The single player game is really cool to play in the beginning when you have 2 or 3 squads, but only until you realize that you cannot lose no matter how you play it! Later on, when you have 10 squads of 9 marines at a time, it becomes really difficult to practice any tactical play at all. The pathing is horrible. If you issue an order to 5 squads to move to a point on the other side of the map, they will take about 5 minutes just to get out of their start holes. It's tedious. When you prepare for a big attack, you want certain units in front, but they require too much space to pass, so in the end, you're just going to attack with everything you have instead. Even then, some units will just wander around like headless chicken long after the attack is over, and you have won an overwhelming victory (of course). The maps should have been 2x larger! The cinematics are also awful. It doesn't give you any feeling of atmosphere. Of course you can't expect more when the cinematics are done within the game, and its really good that they connect with the game. But I must admit that Warcraft III was far more successful at doing this. I wish they would have made real video cinematics instead...
So, what is good in this game? It's 40k. That's about it. The AI is stupid, the story is lame. The dialogs is ridiculous. They speak as if this was their mission. Come on! They have fought a thousand battles! There is only 1 sound for each unit action. I DEMAND AN INTERESTING GAME!
