W40K Dawn of War 2: Retribution

[AceHigh]

Downloading it on steam now, almost got a heart attack when I saw that they released a new one. Will give a short review tomorrow after playing it all night.

Anyone else getting it?

[Proin Drakenzol]

I've had it on preorder through Steam. Can't wait for the Eldar campaign (have to wait until I get back home to play, though)

[Mcgreag]

I have played through with Space Marines and are a few missions in with Imperial Guard atm.
I am a bit disappointed. There are NOT 1 campaign per race, it's 1 campaign that you can play through with any race, the missions are exactly the same for all races. But other than that it's good. I like how they done the unit buying, you get the traditional starting out with a smaller squad and increasing in accordance to the situation as the mission progresses but without the actual base building.

[newy]

Have only played the first mission with Imperial and Space Marines (or actually finished the 1st with SM). I knew from the start the you could play one campaign from the viewpoints of the different races, so I can't say I was surprised by it. I'm curious about these unlockable units and upgrade for them but am a bit disappointed about the leveling of the heroes. Looks dumbed down but only because I haven't really looked into the skills and leveling yet (how after finishing only one mission^^).
I'm a bit skeptical about the increasing number of units during the game. I liked the small squads from the original and Chaos Rising.

[AceHigh]

I've had it on preorder through Steam. Can't wait for the Eldar campaign (have to wait until I get back home to play, though)

I started to play as Imperial guard, but switched quickly to Eldar. I must say, I feel the difference in lethality. I can do wonders with my favourite Eldar units: warp spiders.

As for leveling system, it looks dumbed down at first glance, but then again if you think about it in the first two campaigns you only assigned points in order to unlock some of those abilities, now they just shortened it down to just abilities and skip everything in between.

As for the buying units in game: now it actually feels like the campaign variant of the skirmish/multiplayer game that we had originally.
It just bugs me that they added noise chaos Space Marine to the black legion. It's like DUH! Noise chaos space marines hail from Emperor's Children legion.

[Havoc10K]

Actually the entire game is dumbed down, i am heavily disappointed, and I'm a fan of the series. Finished all Dawn of war games at least 3 times, and the only thing I can say about this expansion is, sloppy.

the Pros:
-one giant campaign
-multiple races to play
-resources to use
-easy leveling system
-DOW2 graphics engine slightly updated

the Cons:
-one giant campaign, yes, this is actually both good and bad, cuz you played one campaign, and you can heavily exploit the entire game for other races, you know where and when the ambushes happen, you know exactly how everything plays out, all mechanics are the same, which means some units will have easier way to fight off the enemies.
-soloable, I mean, come on ! I played half the missions with just the leader, on HARD !
-too many units, in some missions, you just walk and shot, some enemies have so weak defenses they are one hitted, and that is in the second half of the game.
-poor wargear, seriously, in DAW2 and CR you could find shitloads of useful or trash wargears, but here ? with the level or rarity, all drops should be purple epics.
-poor wargear models, hardly any changes to armor and weapon visual if any at all.
-elite enemies ? where ? oh you mean those with circles ? they die one shotted.
-10 lvl cap, it's crap, DAW2 lvl 20, DOW2CR lvl 30, DOW2 Ret, lvl 10
-movies level quality very poor, compared to DOW2 earlier movies, this is on the level of DOW1
-End game Boss is hard only due to high HP.

overall score:
The game is interesting, the story is great, the gameplay is good, although it is much more MP oriented than you would like to. the game lost it's touch from the earlier two games, the variety is nearly nonexistent, End boss is hard only because he has a lot of HP
the price I paid is adequate for this game, but I was expecting a lot better from Relic, I think this is their first screw up.

[AceHigh]

You forgot one thing: 2 maps for last stand mode. I would love to see some more variation.

[Havoc10K]

I can live with it, but most of the changes are not making much sense, player is superior and overpowered.

Wargear is far too powerful for 10 levels, i'm walking around wit ha plasma canon that deal 300 damage, single hit from the blast is killing anything in direct vicinity, if I had that weapon on lvl 30 battlefield I would probably not even notice how much power this baby kicks, seriously, 10 levels isn't much of a change for the better, much worse in fact.

Guardsmen campaign, boring.
Eldar Campaign, so-so.
Orks Campaign, hahHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! funny dat
Chaos Campaign, boooriiing
Tyranids Campaign ... ... ... can I move now ? thank you, click click deads, next please.

I wish that instead of Guardsmen there were Battle Sisters, at the very least I would be doing the

"BURNING GLORY!!!!"

instead of something boring, with a commissar whose one of the best ability is killing his own men, when he runs he looks like a bandit with a machete