Dawn of War II

Man, am I having fun with this.  It has definitely been too long since I really played an RTS (Starcraft was the last) as I've spent more time on TBS like Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic (yes, that old thing) and King's Bounty (PLAY THIS GAME) in recent years.  The return to RTS was a pleasant surprise for me, in that it removed the parts that I have always felt were better suited to TBS (like resource/building management - I need time to plan cities, alright!) and made a more action-oriented playstyle the norm.  It is odd going from the Starcraft mold of anything less than the most uber micro meaning that an early rush is going to cost you economy, to the DoWII feeling that anything except rushing is going to cost you economy.  The different feel of a more mutable battlefield and less of a need for base defense really makes micro shine in this game.

I have been playing the offensive Eldar, and the Hive Tyrant Tyrannid, and both are fun in different ways.  Eldar is nice because I really enjoy using the ranged units with the cover system (that almost nobody seems to use online, thus using it provides you with a pretty big advantage) and the hero has an AoE attack (2 pretty quickly if you train immolation) so that early game you can really break down the bunches of small tyranids that seem so popular in a lot of people's rush strategies.  The Hive Tyrant is nice because I can give him charge, and get a few Carnifexes (Carnifii?) and the hero and give them all charge and really clear a battlefield if there's a gridlock on one of those important central victory points.

I haven't really played any annihilation yet, just the victory point mode, but I've done 3v3, 2v2, and 1v1, and they're all fun in different and cool ways, plus I enjoy most of the maps.  All in all, a really enjoyable last few days of playing, I recommend anyone who enjoys RTS games (or even people who don't!) give this game a shot.  Available now in the Games for Windows Marketplace, or through Steam.

As always, comments are welcome...