Since a few days the Dawn of War 2 multiplayer beta is online and open to all Soulstorm buyers and a few people lucky enough, that includes me, who managed to get an beta key.
Read here my impressions of the game after a few days of gaming both against bots and human.

Dawn of War 2 continues the tradition of small scale RTS games which Relic is known for. Other than in games like Red Alert you don't mass produce hundreds of units and mindlessly send them against the enemy. Instead you only produce a dozen squads and/or vehicles and try to outflank the enemy to gain a tactical advantage.

People who have played Down of War 1 might at first be a bit confused when starting with DoW 2, as this game is much closer to Company of Heroes than DoW 1. It includes many features known from CoH like its cover system, rear hits on vehicles and suppression which is even more deadly than in CoH.
But it is not a simple CoH clone with new textures. Many elements were tweaked for a even more action packed gaming experience. DoW 2 is more of a blend of DoW 1 and CoH with a mixture of tweaks and improvements.

The game has two multiplayer game modes, both known from CoH. Victory points, where you have to capture certain points to drain the enemies 500 VP to 0 , or annihilation where you have to destroy the base of the enemy.
All this games can be played either 1 vs 1 or 3 vs 3. You can of course only play a 2 vs 2 by closing two player slots, but that are the matches the maps are optimized for. And the focus is clearly on 3 vs 3 games, something a few people are not happy with as finding other competent people to play with is not always that easy. Also when one player has a bad machine he will lag the game for everyone.

Before you start you have to select your race and your hero. Each race has three heroes to choose from which represents a techtree or doctrine for the CoH players. Different heroes have different personal abilities, slightly different global abilities and can be equipped with different weapons.
As you can see the choice of your hero has a big impact of the game. But that does not mean that your hero is a army slaying killing machine. You still need the rest of your army and even offensive heroes should not attack superior forces alone.

The biggest change compared to both DoW 1 and CoH is that there is no base building at all with a few exceptions. Some heroes can build turrets on the map, and you can build power generators at some fixed locations to increase your resources. Also, some global abilities can create buildings with certain abilities like teleporter gates.
But other than that there is no base building. All your units come from the same building and your tech level doesn't increase by building new barracks, but simply by clicking on the "Next tech level" button.

Some people don't like this, but personally I don't see why this is bad. It frees you from stopping the combat just to place another farm or other in itself useless building. And if you really want to build something, play a hero who can build turrets. Those are the important buildings anyway.

When the game starts you have your base, your hero and your scout squad, meaning the weakest combat squad available to you. The first thing you should do is to start capturing points as there is where your resources come from. The points you can capture are requisition points which increases your requisition rate. Requisition is your primary resource which is used by every unit and some global power. You already start with a nice income of it. Capturing extra points increases this income by a small amount.
The second type of points are power nodes. This nodes alone give you a tiny amount of power which is used for high tech units and upgrades. To increase the power output of a point you first have to activate the power point which costs requisition. And then you can buy additional power generators for even more requisition which increase the power output by quite a bit. Be aware that when the enemy captures the power point he also gets the benefit of all generators attached to that point for no cost. So think before you buy generators if you can hold the point or not. If you are attacking, you can also destroy enemy generators instead of capturing them
If you play with victory points enabled then those are your third type of point available. Each map features 3 victory points and when you control more VP than your enemy then the enemy looses ticks.
Be aware that you can't build listening posts on points to protect them. Requisition and Victory points can be captured back by every wandering enemy infantry unit. Power points first have to be deactivated (with damage), but then can be captured. Its on you to protect your points from the enemy.

There is also a third resource in the game which is gained by killing enemies. Depending on the race this resource has a different name, but the use stays the same. It is used to power global abilities. These abilities are different for every race and hero and can be activated anywhere on the map as long as you can see the point. This global abilities can heal units, give them short duration buffs, summon units or activate the races big explosion like power, for example an orbital bombardment of an small area.

Unlike other RTS games you don't build hundreds of units sending them wave after wave against the enemy. At most you command two dozen units and have to play tactically to outflank the enemy.
People who have played CoH should already know the cover system. Cover comes in two grades, yellow and green (the latter being the better) and a unit in cover can hold of two or more units of equal power easily. So having cover and denying the enemy the use of cover is very important. A different form of cover are buildings which can be garrisoned. Those buildings act as 360° cover and units in them are very well protected. But don't worry, on the maps in the beta buildings, are not placed so that they allow total map control. They are useful, but not game breaking.
CoH players might also be familiar with suppression When a unit is out of cover and under fire by a heavy weapon it quickly becomes suppressed. That means it moves slower and takes even more damage, likely being destroyed in seconds.
That makes it very important that you flank the heavy weapons, which typically have a limited arc of fire, as frontal assaults are destined to fail (unless you have vehicles or special abilities).

All this is already known from CoH. What DoW brings to the party (besides heroes) are melee troops. Some troops are not very good in ranged combat (or able to fire at range at all), but are very dangerous in close combat. Also, when a unit is in close combat it can't fire their ranged weapons. So a all ranged army seldom leads to victory.
Another new thing are jump troops. They provide an additional way to flank a heavy weapon, not by going around, but by going over (or under) it. And they are needed because otherwise heavy weapons might be a bit too strong, especially as those weapons are rather cheap.
One should also mention what DoW 2 lacks, and that is artillery. There are no mortars or higher forms of artillery in the game except for the highly expensive final global ability. That means that if you want to hurt the enemy you must do it up close and can't spam artillery.
Another big equalizer are vehicles. Weapons which are good against infantry are normally very bad against any vehicle. So even the best defense against infantry crumbles when a vehicle appears. So a good mix of units is needed to stay competetive and it is impossible to have all required units on all choke points all the time.

So how does the game play? In my opinion very well. Its fast paced, but not too fast to become unattractive for non pros, and requires a good, but not overwhelming amount of micro. Units move a bit slower than some people are used to it, but that gives you a nice little breathing time between the combats. Just the game browser could use a little work as it has no filters.
An interesting feature is the revive countdown. When you loose your hero you can revive him by paying requisition. The amount of requisition depends on his level and is quite highe at first and counts down. When you wait long enough the price gets lower and lower till it reaches the bottom where it costs only 250 points to revive him.

Should you buy the game? Most likely. But better download steam and participate in the open beta which starts on January 28th.

Check back here often as I might later add a description of the different races. I will also answer question, so ask away. (I am also happy about every non question comment).

Update 1: Races

On to the races.

There are a total of 4 races in the game, each with 3 heroes.
Note that when I talk about special abilities, I mean those abilities which are activated by using the third resource. Each hero also has personal abilities like being able to heal others.

Space Marines

The races you also play in single player. They are the defenders of mankind and interstellar knights mutated by implants to be super humans and wear huge power armours.
Space Marines are the strongest soldiers in the galaxy. As such their units tend to be very strong, but also rather expensive.

Their global abilities include calling a drop pod with tactical marines, teleporting in a squad of terminators and bombarding an area from space.

Their heroes are:
Force Commander
The leader of the army. He is a tough close combat fighter which can be equipped with better weapons and armour or even turned into an terminator. His special abilities are calling close combat assault terminators and a war cry which increases a units defences.

Apothecary
A healer, the only one in the game as far as I know. Otherwise you have to heal at your HQ. He can be equipped with either items which increase his healing power or increase the abilities of other soldiers. The exceptions are his weapons. The Apothecary can become a rather fearsome close combat fighter.
His special abilities are reviving all heroes on the map at once and making all infantry invulnerable for a short time.

Tech Marine
A Tech Marine focuses on vehicles. He is not a very good fighter, but he can build turrets, teleporters and, with the right equipment, lay mines. His special abilities are repairing all vehicles on the map and calling down a Venerable Dreadnought which is stronger than the normal version.

Space marines have a small unit list. Generally they will have less troops than other races but those units are quite powerful. Most of their troops are specialized anti infantry or anti vehicle, but some can be equipped to deal with either threat like their expensive tactical marines.

Orkz (Yes, that's how they are written)

Orkz are a comic relieve race who speak very funny. But that doesn't mean that they are any less dangerous on the battlefield. Their global abilities are reinforcing the squads around the commander . Also nearly every infantry unit have the Waaagh ability which increases the strength of all nearby units. And this ability stack, so 5 units each using Waaagh makes all of them five times stronger (ok, not exactly, but you know what I mean).

Warboss
The biggest ork around. He is a fearsome close combat fighter who can have very effective weapons. His special abilities are a war cry making a squad harder to damage and increasing the close combat power of a squad

Kommando Nob (That's also written that way)
A stealth hero which can sneak around invisible and debuf the enemy. His equipment is centred around this and can increase his sneaking time etc.
As special abilities he can make a squad invisible and call a squad of Kommandos

Mekboy
The tech marine of the Orkz. He can also place turrets and Waagh Banners which make orkz near them fight harder. He can also teleport.
Special abilities are increasing the firing speed of a squad or making a vehicle faster.

Orkz are a close combat race. Their ranged squads aren't the strongest and all of them die easily. That is countered by orkz being generally cheap. They have a nice variety of units with upgrades. Generally as ork player you are always short on requisition, even more than others

Eldar
Eldar are the speed race. Their warriors are a bit weaker than others, but they are fast and use hit and run tactics. Their global abilities are creating portals and creating a psychic storm which damages everything in the area.

Heroes are:

Warlock
A close combat specialist who focuses on doing damage. Slice enemies up with a sword? Check. Shoot psychic blasts? Check. His special abilities are reducing the incoming ranged damage to a squad and making all squads move faster.

Warp Spider Exarch
The Exarch can teleport himself and others around the map and is equipped with a mediocre gun. Still, he can appear everywhere and vanish again as soon as he gets in trouble.
As special abilities he can summon a squad of Warp Spiders and increase the ranged attack of a squad.

Farseer
The Farseer is more of a supporting hero who disrupts the enemy rather than combats directly. As special abilities she can turn of the fog of war in an area for a short time and summon the unique Seer Council which is a close combat squad.

Eldar troops are fragile and rely on speed to get into cover from who they can destroy the enemy. The term glass cannons fits nicely.

Tyranids.
The only race not available in DoW 1. They are invaders from an other galaxy who absorb biomass to add them to their forces.
Their global abilities are instantly creating more troops at their base and terraforming a small part of the map which damages enemies and increases the abilities of Tyranids

Heroes are:

Hive Tyrant
An awesome close combat fighter, probably the best from all the heroes. But he is rather slow. His special abilities are placing nests which allow Tyranids to reinforce and creating spores which can create troops.

Ravener Alpha
He can create tunnels which allow for instant travel. As Special abilities he can detonate other Tyranids which damage enemies and call in Spore Mines which are a suicide unit.

Liktor Alpha
A very fun hero to play with. He is a good melee fighter and has a really long tongue which he can use to grab other units and pull them towards him. As special abilities he can reveal the location of all enemy heroes and. Like the Hive Tyrant create spores which produce units, just a different kind

Tyranids also rely on masses. Their units are very specialized and have very few upgrade options, if at all. Their high level units are rather strong.

How balanced are the races? Its too early to tell, really. I haven't even met someone who plays Tyranids yet.

How balanced are the different forces, and for that matter, how many are there?

Edit: I should probbly say a few things about the review, but seeing how close the open beta is (thanks for the info) ill wait till then.

Added info on races and information about how heroes get revived (gets cheaper the longer you wait)

Nice review I really hope the finished game is as good as it sounds here. The cover system and rear vehicle hits sound like great gameplay additions.

and open to all Soulstorm

I KNEW I shouldn't have skipped that part.

Oh well. I loved the game, and the only reason I didn't play it too long was because I had English Dark Crusade and Polish DoW and Winter Assault. They could be played together, but it was impossible to learn all of the buildings and creatures and recognize them in 2 languages.

Seems like DoW 2 will be a lot better, though. And of course, I'll be playing DA ORCZ!

...Assuming the price will be under 120 PLN, which is a lot in Poland. There rarely are games for more than 120, most of them are 80-100 PLN.

Iv been playing it all weekend and i bloody love it. Was a bit too used to DOW1 at first so i lost a few games but know im getting better.

Cant wait for more people to get into the beta.

Trying to download it now but my internet is SO BLOODY SLOW! Sorry, but it's true. It's been downloading for about an hour and a half and it's only at 64% now. Will definitely post my thoughts when it's loaded though :D.

I played it and really came out disappointed. I really like the fact that there was no base building. but the ridiculous unit cost, coupled with the fact that most most units move like they are made of cement lead to something that is a farcry from the warhammer we know and love. there is essentially only one tier one unit that is remotely affordable so I hope you like scouts. also there's the fact that all units seem to be entirely indestructible, with this is unfortunately not a good thing, it means that you can send a huge walker wielding a giant sword into the enemy base and watch it wail on a turret for ten to fifteen minutes. I really recommend you play the beta before buying this because you might not like what you see.

I have so far enjoyed the beta, didnt get on with the nids though....just didnt like playing as them.

didnt even know this game was on the way.....

Couldn't stand it personally, just feels boring on skirmishes (And Techmarine is overpowered to hell, lol). Terminators walking through walls and buildings (They're treated like tanks) is hilarious tho.

Hopefully, it will have an amazing single player experience.

Good Review Ixal. Have you ever played Ground Control 2? It sounds like that was the prime inspiration for DoW2. The whole game revolves around Capture/ Requisition mechanic with advancing drop points. You never built a base, but as you advanced and captured areas your requisition rate increased and some new captured areas had new drop points allowing forces to mobilize at different locations.

My Only complaint about DoW2: Only 4 races with initial release? REALLY?! After how many expansion packs, you can only deal out four races? I would expect at LEAST five or six. They just replaced Chaos Marines with Tyrannids.. They shouldn't REPLACE but ADD to a sequel. Yes they'll do it through their good ol' Expansion pack method, but after so much built onto the original you would of thought they would of had a slightly bigger core package.

Having said that, I'm still going to buy it.

Very detailed review and you should try some other reviews.

But I like many others are turned off from the changes. The reliance on requisition is too high compared to the cost of building units, buying wargear, building powerplants and teching, and god forbid your commander unit falls.

I will probably not buy this but if the game goes faster when I upgrade then I might reconsider.

I liked the Beta so far, but I really liked the original much more.

I will most likely purchase it, and unless there's a huge change I'll still be a little upset.
Otherwise its great and your review does do it justice.

I liked the beta in the beginning but I'm starting to get that ol' "Relic is a bunch of useless idiots" feeling that Dark Crusade and Soulstorm left me with...

First of all, I can't get the automatch system to work at all. I can't find team games, I can't find 1v1 games and since other people have ranks with wins and losses I have to assume it works for someone out there.

Also, custom games are great but I can't connect to certain people (of course, the one person I actually want to play with and maybe 1/3 of the custom games). I've never seen "NAT Error" before in another PC game but something is definitely off because the two of us can play Company of Heroes online together without a single problem.

Ok, now that I'm beyond the technical things let's get to the actual game.

I can deal with getting rid of base building, the game loses some depth for me but if it plays well I'll give it a shot. If I can't build a base then shouldn't I be allowed to defend the one building I need for everything? There is no builder so there is no race-spanning unit to build turrets so when someone inevitably gets through your defenses there isn't a thing you can do about it except run back to your base a fast as possible (which is agonizingly slow for every single unit).

Prices of units are so ridiculous that if you use a single squad you've effectively lost the match. A couple squads of space marines behind cover or a shuriken cannon or two behind cover can tear through quite a number of your boys before they realize you have been pounding on the retreat button for a solid minute which brings me to my next point.

The retreat button is supposed to get your units out of harm's way so your investment is protected, as it does in Company of Heroes, however, it never works immediately. Ranged units behind cover seem to think it takes 30 seconds to get out from behind a wall and run and god forbid you have a squad of melee units in combat and want them to run, they either won't run or are hopelessly stuck. Any loss of a full squad is devastating to your future in the game so this should be the one function that works well but, unfortunately, it isn't.

Suppression is a great thing in Company of Heroes, it makes you pay attention to your surroundings, be quick with the retreat button and use alternate routes. In Company of Heroes a squad under suppression isn't in danger of dying immediately, they drop to the ground, take less damage and are generally alive long enough for you to hit the "RUN AWAY YOU MORONS!" button; in DoW2 your units are lost to you the second they are under suppression. They seem to take twice as much damage when under suppression, they are slow to retreat when you hit the button, and they can't crawl out of it like you can in Company of Heroes.

I admit I have the game at medium graphics but it really doesn't seem that spectacular to me when compared to Company of Heroes at medium. Sure, it's a bit more shiny but your units tend to be indistinguishable from their surroundings. Even the brown on brown of Company of Heroes allows you to see units more easily than DoW2. I have to assign every individual unit to a control group just to keep track of them all otherwise I'm stuck clicking randomly on the screen hoping I catch a squad.

And, once again, this opens up a fresh topic to gripe about... Control groups are a complete annoyance. If you have multiple units in one group you can tab through to see their status but you can't see how they are individually (or at least it isn't bold enough that I have figured it out). I've put two squads into one group, sent them out and lost one to suppression because I told the wrong one to retreat.

Other than that I hope the map choices are far better because every single map, even the 6 player ones, feel tiny and constricted (mostly because they are). Without all that space dedicated to base building it seems the developers decided to make every single map as small as physically possible. There is no long range, there is barely any medium range, and even though there is a lot of close range your melee units are completely useless when faced with anything behind cover. Jump squads are the only useful melee unit in the game even the supposedly beefed up late game melee squads have trouble getting close to anything with an automatic weapon.

I'll summarize the rest of my problems:
I can't read how many points I have for Commander powers at 1280x800.
Timed grenades wasn't something that needed to be carried over.
Multiple units of the same race all look the same, you can't click select at all.
Techpriest turrets are overpowered in the early game.
Space Marines are generally overpowered.
Eldar take feeble to a new level without any of the mobility they used to have.
Nids can swarm but a swarm of units that take two shots to kill isn't that useful.
Stealth only makes your units invisible as long as no enemy units are nearby.
Most vehicles seem to be armored with tissue paper and armed with nerf guns.

And yet I'm still considering buying the game.

Ixal, you hath done a good job. Rest now warrior, and tell us more about the awesome.

...
Unless you're done of course.

I'd be playing this right now if:
A. It ran on my computer without glitching up, and running at .05 frames per second.
B. My steam account wasn't stolen.

:/

I no longer love steam.

I've been taking in impressions about this game where I can and the reception seems to be pretty doubtful. I'd suggest you guys take a look at Vaulsc's youtube account. He's an rts player who's been around the block a few times and is kicking people around left and right with his Eldar.

Count de monet is making me very fearful for this game. But there's still loads of imbalanced stuff in the game and I guess everybody is using it to the max so getting into h2h versus some forces may be impossible.

Interesting breakdown of the problems.

Reading that makes me feel less crazy.

I've been playing the beta a bit in the last couple of days (with computer players... too much lag with h2h). And I think gameplay wise it has alot of potential, its a different game to DOW1 but i'm a big fan of the fluid, in your face kind of action, and I suspect once people learn more about what each unit is capable of and relic fixes the balance it'll be a top-notch game.

Oh and Count_de_Monet, if you really want a face paced game with the eldar, try using the warpspider exarch, with warpspider support squads, if you're smart, you can cross the map in seconds.

I've been playing the beta as well for a few days now. What a disappointment....

OH yeah, I hate this game. Now for my reasons. I know I'll get flamed because some people enjoy games with strategies that make a 3 year old feel good, but I play strategy games because they require more cognitive thought than a person in a COMA!

I don't know where relic decided to go with this game. The combat system is retarded. It's essentially rock, paper, scissors with crappy reused elements in every race. Very little individuality and complexity to the flow of battle. Original DOW had tons of unit types, armor types, moral effects, magic effects, and etc... DOW always had that epic battle feel as well. Who didn't love to be in a hot battle and see a bloodthirster swoop in from above to Pwn tiny units and make you say HOLY SHIT! But, obviously that has nothing to do with why we play these games according to relic.

Where's the imperial guard??!!! NO CHAOS SPACE MARINES WTF!!!! Oh they must not be important to the storyline whatsoever. Or how about coming up with a way to give us another 11 races and make us pay 59.99 A RACE!!!

The unit cap in DOW2 is ridiculously low. A squad of marines is only 4 units??!!!! OH and you can't reinforce it beyond that. Your home base takes like 20 minutes to blow up with a squad of marines or a dreadnought. Apparently, in this version of the game, an evil magical time wizard has slowed time down to retarded level where everyone can come up with 300 different ways on how to click on the ground again before getting fed up with waiting for a unit to travel 10 feet!

In all honesty this game isn't so bad. I think I would enjoy it if I had to choose between playing it or having a lobotomy. I don't think I will every buy another product from relic. It's so infuriating that they took a game that had so much depth and shock factor and turned it into a retarded game that might help with insomnia.

But, I should thank relic for releasing this beta, It shows me the direction they're going to go now. Obviously the simplicity of this game was targeted for the CRAPBOX 360 users. I mean it would be too hard to play a decent RTS on a 360 controller. So thank you relic for releasing this beta. I WILL DEFINITELY NOT BUY THIS GAME.

Obviously the simplicity of this game was targeted for the CRAPBOX 360 users.

Well done for making your opinion completely irrelevant!