I finally got the BETA up and running like 1 day before it was open BETA.

It is open you all of you so if you like strategy games go out there and play it. (its open BETA starting today). You'll need a Windows Live account to play. You will need Steam to download it (I think).

What do I think so far?

Dawn of War II is pretty cool. It is a lot like Company of Heroes with Dawn of War units. One major change is there is virtually no base building and no supply collector management. Instead you have one unit-building structure that you start with that you have to pay to upgrade to get higher tier units.

You still buy units. You get a hero who can be revived if it dies. You collect resources by taking requisition points. You collect power by activating power nodes and placing power plants around the power node.

The game is greatly simplified, and there is virtually no micromanagement. The game comes down to almost all combat, controlling perimeters, and building the necessary units to fight

If you've never played a Dawn of War game. The combat is simple. You have to juggle different unit types: vehicles, infantry, melee, ranged, mobile, and deployed. There are no air units which simplifies things a bit. Infantry have rock paper scissors circles of effectiveness. You can garrison buildings if you need to. Vehicles are tough to kill and can wipe-out infantry like they were ants (especially mechs). If the enemy has vehicles and you don't its no good. Some times you can settle for cheaper deploy-able anti vehicle type units rather than mobile mech units to combat strong vehicles. One downside of these deploy-able units is if they are attacked from the back it is basically like money wasted (they will get taken out by even the most basic units).

When you get really late in the game you can build what I call a "super unit" it is usually good against most units and has a different unit type. Super units tend to be very big (in this game about as big as vehicles). They cost a lot but they can also eat up a lot of rounds before dying. They seem to be about as powerful/armored as 2-3 vehicles (plan accordingly).

Units gain levels. This is basically like units gaining promotions in command and conquer.

Units look higher quality than they did in Dawn of War. But what I found in multiplayer is even my fast computer can't handle the game on its high settings. Often times people come into games with the "recommended" settings and their computer can't handle it. The game actually tells you who is lagging the most and why your game is running slow. You might get a message like: "rasd123 has set graphical settings too high"while the game has slowed to a crawl. While it is nice to know that they have their settings too high I wish the game would auto lower their settings.

I should warn you. The Beta is multiplayer only. One on one is not for the faint of heart (I started with 1v1 but I kept getting wiped out before I could figure out what I was doing). So I recommend if you want to get right into it, do a team match (3 vs 3). You will actually have more time to learn the units before you get taken out (if it is your first time).

But the game is pretty easy to learn. One thing you have to remember to do is get unit upgrades. These aren't global upgrades like in Warcraft. They are individual unit by unit upgrades. Heroes can get health and weapon upgrades. Long Ranged units get infiltration upgrades. Mechs can get anti infantry and anti armor upgrades.