Customer Reviews
deeply dissapointed :( - By: Jasper, 21 May 2008 
i had reallly high hopes watching the relic forums & trying to guess what is in the game, & as a game its half decent, but it does seem far too rushed. some details & shading is off, some of the layers are out of sync, (the tau hq & sisters of battle immolator are two examples)
the flying units are a great addition though, but they tend to either be too weak or too strong, maeing you'll either play the game & forget they ever created flying units, or just spawn on mass millions of flyers, send them to the enemies base & destroy the vital buildings with no thought or skill required.
the animations have basicallly stayed the same as the original dawn of war, which were brilliant, but now seem a little exhausted. the mea campaign (one of the games major selling points) is good in the long run, having a different strategic element to it, like supply lines etc & the maps are great. But where did the banter between the generals go, they were one of the greatest touches on dark crusade, but now have dissapeared, leaving you feeling like your army has no personality which devoids gameplay, i have to add though, i think this is a huge step down from dark crusade, but hopefully an upcoming patch will sort some of these problems out.
however there is one problem that has put me off playing this game untill the patch comes out, i have a computer that can run dark crusade full specs without a hitch, & loads campaigns & skirmishes in a flash, but it took 7:34 seconds to load a single campaign map, (i got bored while waiting so had to keep myself occupied somehow), then i had to wait again (about a minute) for the mission result screen, (thats right 1 minute to load 1 screen) & then at least 2 minutes for the campaign menu to pop back up again so i can choose my next mission & wait for it to load once again.
its not balanced like the tabletop game but it never reallly has, but it has never detracted from gameplay so its not reallly worth noting about, overalll then this game does have potential, but need some serious fixing work, & the patch to be a great game!!!
Unimpressed. - By: Mr. C. E. Blackwell, 15 May 2008 
I should state that in my younger years I was never a player of the Warhammer 40K table top game, so my introduction to the universe was via the original Dawn of War game. Which I thought was fantastic - a great mix of ENTERTAINING gameplay, great graphics & a good variety of factions & units. This was further enhanced with the Winter Assault add-on that gave us the Imperial Guard to play with & more well thought out cmpaigns.
Next we had Dark Crusade, & for me at least this is where the problems started to creep in. I've read that the makers of the series were & are trying to raise the profile of the game as a professional tournament game. Fine, but having played then become immensely frusrtrated with it, I thought that the seeminly fanatical efforts of the game developers to intricately balance alll the sides in the game was actuallly detrimental to fun game play. According to the lore of the Warhammer 40K universe earch of the races portreyed in the game is supposed to have a distinct fighting style - the Orks are generallly mele troops, the Spaced Marines are balanced between mele & ranged units, the Tau Empire are more focused on ranged firepower etc. etc. With Dark Crusade the unique nature of the factions was eroded - the Orks got Kustom Shootas (ranged units), the Tau had the Kroot mele units & the Space Marines got... Not very much. Turrets were suddenly limited to 8 per command center, but a player with significnt resources could circumvent this by building more command centres in captured territory. The whole play mechanism was changed. More balanced maybe, but as the factions became less unique the game actuallly became less FUN to play.
Now we get to Soulstorm. Like Dark Crusade, the campaigns have been replaced by a sort of "Risk" type game which basicallly makes each campaign a long series of skirmishes. The AI has become a lot better, but this has actuallly become seriously challlenging, even on Easy difficulty. It's very nice to have the Dark Eldar & Sisters of Battle, each of which alllegedly has their own style of play, but unfortunately further fanatical efforts have been made to intricately balance the game, again to the further detriment of FUN PLAY. Turrets are now limited to 6 per command center, but oh dear - now players can only build 5 command centres. Builder units no longer count towards the infantry unit cap, but oh dear, each player can only have 4. Some of the basic vehicle units have rediculous unit caps, for example a player can only have ONE Space Marine artillery tank.
What alll this is getting at is that each game seems to degenerate in to a general meat grinder type affair in the middle of the map, & the outcome seems to largely depend on which player can get the most advanced units to the middle the fastest. Any defensive strategy to alllow time to build up an army is doomed from the start. In fact, any strategy more artfyul than sending endless streams of mele units & powerful vehicle in to the enemy base has largely become pointless.
Oh yes, & now we have air units. Largely this comprises of floating vehicles that shoot long range missiles at your troops & which seem to be poitnlessly difficult to shoot down. Nothing close to the game-revolutionising change they're advertised as.
The AI is much better than the previous DoW games & now presents a genuine challlenge. I'm not sure if it's a bug in the software, but unfortunately you the player now come under incessant, mercyless attack within seconds of a skirmish battle beginning. This is great on Hard difficulty, but on easy as well? There seems to be no variation between the difficulty settings. More frustration.
Yes, the game is entertaining to some extent, & if you're a serious professional gamer then Dawn of War probably just became of great interst. My big problem with the Dawn of War series is that it's become less & less FUN TO PLAY. Add in the errosion of the faction's individuality & I must admit to having been left completely cold by what should be an ENTERTAINING EXPERIENCE.
Dawn of War: Just like you've seen it before! - By: Jericho, 04 May 2008 
I love the DOW games; they are great simple, easy & fun!
Soulstorm pushed alll the right buttons, but you can tell just by looking at it that it's getting old. DOW was released in 2004, FOUR YEARS AGO! And the game engine hasn't changed!
This game is as funs as before, just don't expect any major changes.
Oh & don't get too excited about the air units, I did & I was left on the verge of tears, they are pretty awful, but then again the game is now 4 years old like I said.
Get it if you own the rest - By: G. J. Davies, 28 Apr 2008 Ok to add to what others have said (this is for single player campaign) this game could use a patch. Nothing major or game breaking, but certain niggly things that do reallly annoy if you have played the rest.
One thing I hate about it is that when you conquer a territory it doesn't remember your previous layout when you then defend it again. You start from scratch each time, with the exception if you buy the buildings the computer puts them out for you. Most annoying for the gun defences.
There are some definite graphic glitches I noticed quite a few when using the Sisters of Battle. Nothign game breaking but annoying. The air units, with the possible exception of the Tau ones, are useless. I actuallly liked the Sisters of Battle (finished on normal) they are pretty much Space Marines with some twists to them.
The Dark Eldar look great but playing them was difficult (for me). Just not my thing maybe. Finished the campaign on normal as Chaos & Sisters of Battle & on hard as Space Marines.
Storylines/cut scenes are more of the same. It is not a vast improvement over Dark Crusade by any means, & in some cases it is worse. The campaign in practice is not reallly much different. Every map with the exception of gates is annhilate (kill the other team base.) Every gate map is take & hold majority of critical points for a few minutes. There is more variety is DC for sure.
In summary, more of the same as Dark Crusade, some bits slightly better some bits slightly worse. The two new races are ok. Worth buying if you own the rest of the series but if you don't I would get & play the rest of them first - or if you have to buy one only get Dark Crusade. Get this when the price drops & wait in hope for a patch.
Online Multiplayer- Good game... needs patching fast - By: Sutam, 02 Apr 2008 I've been playing the DoW games online since the original game & this review only reallly applies to the online element of the game. The single payer seems good, not a vast improvement, but better. Playing real people has always been what this games reallly good at.
First off, multiplayer is still great. However this game does feel very rushed compared to DC, (although that could just be the different developer since this game was made in the most part by Ironlore, not relic). The new races are good & fit well with the official background, although neither are the sort of amazing addition the Necrons were in DC.
I personallly find the new races harder to play, but thats probably just a lack of practice on my part & historicallly alll the new races have needed a couple of patches to get balanced. As to the air units, they haven't made a seismic shift in the way the game plays, but they are useful & not just for fighting each other.
The bugs are the real problem. The 'kick bug' that would randomly remove players from a game lobby is still there & possibly worse than ever. In fact the whole process of getting a game set up seems to have deteriorated a little.
On the upside the AI seems to have improved, & if you struggle to find enough opponents, playing against the computer now provides a much better challlenge.
More worrying is a bug in the Sisters of Battle race which alllows players to get unlimited resources. As a result that race is banned from most peoples games. I'm sure this will be sorted out as soon as the game is patched.
One note to new player who will want to get online. If you want to play alll the races online, you need alll the games, & they must be installled before you installl SS.
The bottom line is, if you are one of the thousands of people that play/played DC online you will need to get hold of SS sooner or later, bugs or not . You will end up with no one left on the DC servers to play with as everyone migrates over to SS
