Completely different from the first one, but not in a bad way. With far less units to control, this one felt more tactical and engaging within fights since it was more micro-focused. Definitely recommend if you're not into the RTS formula from the first one. (base building, spawning units, etc.)

"Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Anniversary Edition" delivers a fast-paced and tactical real-time strategy experience set in the grim darkness of the far future.

With a rich and immersive storyline, the game's offers a compelling single-player campaign.

The game's level design is varied and engaging, with plenty of opportunities for tactical maneuvering.

Intriguing tactical game. Comes with all expansions. Got it on a deal. Very engaging.

Great game but does not run properly, it freezes my screen upon hitting play. I run a decent system too, no issues around the hardware. Apparently, other users say its due to a free "Anniversary Edition" update that breaks the game.

This is the only Dawn of War game worth buying.

In Dawn of War 1, they decided to make it a base-building game. I don't know who made that decision, but it was unforgivable. It's called WARhammer 40,000, not Constructionhammer 40,000. It's supposed to be a war game, not a city building game.
Dawn of War 2 (this one) fixes that problem, which is great to see. Unfortunately, they still have base building in the skirmish mode, but the campaign mode is good.
And then, from what I hear, part 3 took a massive step backwards and returned to all the building crap. Never buying that.

They didn't bring over the MP cosmetic skins at all or the DLC last stand commanders (they lied), plus gotta level last stand again from scratch, what the actual f**k?

Just find the DoW II Master set on CDKeys for like $10.

Hard avoid this cash grab.

its good

amazing love the need for planning ahead and the strategys needed to conquer your foes and be victorious over all enemys.

So let me just say this is coming from the perspective of someone who really likes the dawn of war retribution last stand game mode.

combining all the dawn of war 2 games in the way they did is a good idea on paper but this absolutely sucks. So I love the last stand mode so I was just like "oh ok, I'll play that in 2 instead that will be easy enough"
BUT NO
they didn't port over any of the DLC! so if you play last stand, which is literally one of the 3 game options in the menu (and so in theory should be given the same weight as multiplayer and campaign), you have none of the additional content. Not only does this limit the builds you can do and the variety of the game mode, a lot of the meta or at least optimal builds rely on that DLC wargear (Yes it's bad that you had to pay for some of the best gear in the first place but that's besides the point). But even worse than that the character DLC isn't here either! So no tau commander, no necron lord, no imperial guard general (ok not that upset about him).

and since DoW Retribution is unlisted from the store it means even if for now we can just play that, over time it will get no new players and only shrivel further, especially with the potential players split between two games. I just really cannot see the logic behind this, not even offering them for sale if you don't want to include them as default.

but yeah dawn of war 2 its fine idk i personally dont care for it as much as the first one, but this is mostly a gripe about them neutering my favourite game mode and then locking the good version away forever with a slowly shrinking playerbase.
unsure if anything else is missing have not played multiplayer since the anniversary ect.