I was more-or-less excited about the game. It was to be the first RTS built from the ground up for the xbox 360. I knew it wouldn't feel contrived or shoe-horned onto the platform, and it wouldn't be a chore to control like BFME2 and C&C3. And for the most part, the controls work very well, and it runs great (Games like Supreme Commander, and Universe at War had really horrible framerates). But in trade of good controls, it got majorly dumbed down.

It's hard for me to put my finger on what bothers me about the game... I think the main problem I have with it is just lack of units. For UNSC (the only side I played so far), you have a cap of 30 units. You can up that by 10 in trade for resources, but 40 still isn't a lot. On top of that, you only have access to 9 types of units. Period. 3 for the barracks, 3 for the vehicle yard, and 3 for the air field. Each unit has 3 or so tech upgrades, but that's still nothing too interesting. Flamethrower units with a flashbang upgrade are still flamethrower units.

Now I haven't really paid much attention to the development of this game, so I don't know if 9 units is really the max in the final game... But if it isn't (which I'm pretty sure it's not) that's stupid too. If you're going to give me skirmish mode in your demo, give me the full capabilities of my faction. Act of War did this, and it annoyed the hell out of me, and made me never want to buy their game. I mean, you don't see demos of FPS games not giving you a weapon, do you? It's just not a good way to sell the game.

I've played a LOT of RTS games, and have never been particularly good at any one of them. So basically, if I were to skirmish on anything past a Normal CPU player, I'd get my ass handed to me, and the chances of me winning a skirmish vs a Normal CPU (depending on the game) is usually about 50/50. That said, if I go into a Normal CPU skirmish match on a RTS I've never played before, I expect to get my ass beat.

That wasn't the case with halo wars. I simply shouldn't have a final score that is several thousands of points higher than my Normal CPU opponent the first time I play the game. 

I guess to sum it all up, Halo Wars seems like an RTS made for people who have never played an RTS before. Read: Halo fans are the only people who are going to buy this game, and Ensemble knows that 90% of them have probably never played an RTS game in their life. 

So in the end, it has Good controls and interface, but dumbed down mechanics and gameplay. Or at least thats what the demo is showing people all over xbox live.

It's a bit disappointing to me, and is shining proof as to why good RTS games (Thats not to say Halo Wars is a BAD RTS game) will always have PC as their first home.

Oh yeah, there is no multiplayer in the demo. What the fuck?

Edit: I guess what I'm trying to say about halo wars is that it's not complex enough for an RTS game. The game seems like it was designed to work as fluently as possible with a controller, and as a result the game is just... half baked in comparision to the RTS greats on PC. You just can't get the complexity on a controller that you can with a keyboard, even if the game was built from the ground-up for it.

But for what Halo Wars does, it does really well... I just don't think it's enough to satisfy anyone who's ever considered themself an RTS player.