Frankie Zee

I have both Dawn of War with all of the expansions and Dawn of War II. I have played Company of Heroes. While I admit, I haven't really gotten into the multiplayer aspect of any RTS's, I can tell you from a gameplay standpoint, I would suggest DoW with the expansions over DoW II or CoH. CoH and DoW II are almost the same game with different graphics; the gameplay is the same. There's no base building in the campaign. You outfit a few squads before deployment and then that's what you have to work with to clear the map, with areas where you can call reinforcements if you lose units. I think I made it to the last map in DoW II but never cleared it. Instead I picked up the Soulstorm expansion for DoW and that's what I play now. I was extremely dissapointed with DoW II, it's a completely different game than DoW; it's based on the CoH style. If you like CoH, you'll probably like DoW II. I get bored and always go back to DoW though. I like the base building aspect of an RTS and that's what keeps me coming back to it, DoW is more of a traditional RTS although you don't have to worry about material gathering, you just secure strategic points. I also really like the single player campaign with the Soulstorm expansion.

I wish I could give input on multiplayer but like I said, I've never played any RTS that way. I've been debating on it but seeing as I stick to campaigns, I'm sure I won't last too long out there haha. I do have to be honest and say I've heard grumbling by fans on the what they did to DoW II, so while I can't vouch for the amount of people playing, the general feel I got was that not many people stuck with DoW II for very long. I could be wrong though.