Still the best COH for me!!! Definetly recommend buying on sale with all faction dlc´s and then download Spearhead 1 and Spearhead Win conditions mod (200 pop for units) for more new units and realism.

I had a blast with this mod, played almost 700 hours with friends.

PS: Spearhead 1 can´t be played in campaign and new units don´t have alot of new models, because modding in COH2 is limited, but Skirmish will be much more fun for realism fans, once you know how the mod functions.

- You can´t have modded skin camouflages in the mod.

+ You don´t need any generals, just pick a division in HQ in the beginning (there are 6 for every faction) and you get everything (otherwise you have only basic units and no abilitys)

There are even more new and unique units in the forward bunker via Call in ;3
(Indians, Australians, Italians, Hungarians, there is alot :3)

Yes, there is Spearhead 2 Stoklo for online custom games PvP, but is only half the fun. (More Esports orientated gameplay)

I'd happily stick with the CH2 for a few years, maybe after few years im move to CH3 if, it was 80% sale with free weekend test!

DO I RECOMMEND THIS GAME?: YES (get some friend tho). If you want to know more, read below:

Not as good as CoH 1 (Soviet campaign perpetuates myths and falsehoods about the Eastern Front, not very compelling; Ardennes Assault is so boring to play and even less compelling) but better than CoH 3 since this one is more "focused" so to say. CoH 1 overall was more polished and thought out, especially on the single player with its endless replay value. Multiplayer on CoH 2, however, is its main strength, very varied and best with friends.

Sadly nowadays its very common to find bots from around the world. Game was never able to get some proper balance regarding some exploits and critical weaknesses that are inherent of the game's design (light vehicles being outright useless due to AT gren prevalence, certain nerfs that went too far, a very easy tendency to snowball games from early leads, making a comeback impossible, just to give one example). There are also many bugs that were never fixed and persist to this day (for god sake ditch BugSplatter).

Some mechanics like the weather and ice lakes were very interesting but sadly never polished to reach its full potential.
However in spite of all this, is still a very solid experience, especially when you get human players on both sides of multiplayer matches. Also the mods are good. Its the little brother of the best WW2 strategy game of all time.