My review of WARHAMMER 40K - DAWN OF WAR.

RTS games have been copying each other for too long. You play one, you play another. They both seem far too
similar in my opinion. Then DAWN OF WAR brings a great new change, providing fast-paced RTS action i've never seen before. My squad of chaos warriors running across the battlefiled, firing at a bunch of bloodthirsty orcs at the same time. They take cover in a hole beside base-point, with a swarm of orcs beside it, growling around, waiting for me to pounce. I send a few more squads and move out into the open. A fierce battle begins.
My chaos warriors fire off blasts at the orcs, who send back thier own. After a lot more playing, victory was mine. And never once was I bored.
DAWN OF WAR is (In my opinion) the best RTS you can currently buy (Prehaps Med2 is good, but I haven't tried that yet, so this game remains my favorite). I love the fierce combat, the animations, the lovely graphics, the yells from the little fighters as they dash across the exploding battlefields. I also like the model-painter. You can design what your main troops look like, choose a mark for your flag, then colour it all. And then, you can save it as your own little personal team.

Overall, DAWN OF WAR should win any RTS fan and I rate it: 90%.

For me it also turned out different from the usual RTS pattern, since the resource management is drastically different (Resource Points are earned by claiming locations on the map, thus neccessitating an agressive mode of expansion from the get-go).

After a while it got somewhat bland. While it's nice in multiplayer, those who simply don't have net access will not enjoy it half as much as the others. The single player mode offers only one campaign and a bunch of pre-made maps for one-off battles (there are no stand-alone scenarios).

I heard the expansion packs (Winter Assault & Dark Crusade) improve that a bit, though didn't have an opportunity to find out myself yet.

I played it at my cousin's house and I don't like it. I've been playing RTS for years - I'm a huge C&C fan, I loved Z and I still play Populous : The Beginning online - and Dawn Of War, to me, is just another of this new generation of weak RTS games that spend too much time worrying about graphics to let gameplay get a look in. I didn't like the camera view, I didn't like the troop selection style, and I didn't like the battle style. It gets a big chainsoar thumbs-down. And I have big thumbs.