Dawn of War II

Played the Dawn of War II beta today, and its been a pretty shitty ride. I really enjoyed the first one, and I dont know where Relic went wrong. First of all, it doesnt play anything like the other one: you dont really build anything except for units. Unlike the tabletop game, you get an extremely limited amount of Requisition to build with, so you end up taking quite awhile to get anything that might be considered a sizable force.

Part of the problem is that there is no tutorial to be found. You are basically thrust into this game and must navigate your own way through this grim and dark future. There are no tech buildings, resources trickle in incredibly slowly, and there is almost no way to actually try and hold onto territory that you acquire.
The hours I've spent trying to figure out this game and actually play it were universally frustrating. I start out by capturing points, only to have the computer run up and take them the moment I go somewhere else. If I leave a squad there, then I just end up losing another point. If I can manage to wrestle with my anger long enough to get a whole of three squads, generally the computer just bypasses everything I have out and fucks up my base instead. That, or they just send in a fucking dreadnaut that is immune to damage from anything but my hive tyrant (which gets killed incredibly quickly anyway).

Coming in from Dawn of War, this sequal only bests it in the graphics department. It looks great, plays like shit. I've only managed to actually successfully complete one game so far. Every other time I end up quitting after about half an hour of playing "run around the map and try to reclaim my points and watch my guys get killed very quickly by a trio of space marines". Generally the matches just didnt go anywhere: it was just a fucking game of hide and seek until I my squads started to dwindle into oblivion.
I'm canceling my pre-order. Perhaps in two months Relic will make some fixes to make the game actually, well...fun.

Edit: Oh yeah...

I actually ended up going to the forums to see what others thought about it. I guess the "right" way to play tyranids is to get tyranid warriors and get the right synapse upgrade. The problem is that if you get the first upgrade for them, you cant get another one. Also, they take a LOT of time to make, so at best you can expect to maybe have a squad of warriors and the starting squad of termagants. Assuming they are still alive by the time you manage to get enough power points to build them.

This is a problem because it seems to contain a lot of "game mastery" involved. Basically, if you dont play it the "right" way, you will lose. You cant build the units you want, you have to build the right ones and do the right things to make them effective. This is bullshit, especially without any kind of tutorial that tells you "Hey, your shit sucks if you dont do this-or-that!"

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