The enemy is well organized, much more numerous and always has quite a few of surprises. There are no “real” resources, although on the strategic level, you need to take into account three types of structures. You never get to direct more than four squads of Space Marines. Instead, you get a game full of choices, all of which are important and all of which can change the way your experience in Dawn of War II. The big question that arises for the reviewer is “Can Dawn of War II be classed as a RTS?” After all, there's no base building, there's no rushing, no huge mobs of impossible to distinguish units and no teching up.
It can all be summed up in one phrase like this “Dawn of War II is a real tactics title with strategic elements and a level cap.” And the great thing is that, as weird as it sounds, the concept works beautifully. There are definite class progression elements, with experience points being distributed, gear being chosen and abilities evaluated. You usually have about 12 guys to command and the objectives are built upon eliminating enemy commanders, destroying clusters of buildings or just making it out alive of hairy situations. There's little (in multiplayer) to no (in single player) base building.
Instead, the developer decided to take a radical approach to the franchise. Relic could have easily taken all of the above, added a cover system a la Company of Heroes and a graphical upgrade and sell it as Dawn of War II. It had it all: base building, teching up, a lot of unit types, a lot of factions, an overall strategic map in the final releases, wargear for commanders, and scripted missions for the toughest challenges. In the original Dawn of War, it had a beautiful game, which generated three successful expansion packs, played nice in multiplayer, provided epic battles and was quickly enshrined in the Hall of Fame of RTS games.
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