As mentioned before; I'm a Relic fanboy. The PC games, atleast. Considering they make console games as if they hate them...

Anyway, I've bought Company of Heroes Tales of Valor the other day and I've had Dawn of War II for a good while now. So, a review for either would be suitable. Mainly because I need a reason to talk about Tales of Valor aside from complaining...

TALES OF VALOR:
In a nutshell; It feeds on other games' gameplay. Hence how it got brought on the market. Cause seriously, every mode that has shipped with the game is ripped directly from any game that has a fanbase the size of China. Anyway, the new modes are so called Operation modes. Without getting too complicated;

Stonewall - Horde Mode/Survivor Mode/Nazi Zombies.
Panzerkrieg - Hero Unit/Dawn of War II Campaign/Call of Duty 4.
Assault - World in Conflict/Tug of War.

Now, detailed;

Stonewall - One base, four players, and they all have to hold out against a superior opponent who throw units at 'em until they reach INFINITY/99 rounds.
Panzerkrieg - Straight out of Dawn of War II. One near-unkillable bastard commands a horde of unlimited severely nerfed bastards.
Assault - As simple as it can get. Think your local kids playing tug of war on a map the size of Sweden and with tanks.

And then there's three campaigns... Sounds like alot, doesn't it? All three campaigns last 2 hours. Total. Yes, if you do all three of 'em in a row. You'll be done in 2 hours. Now, I usually play on Normal - So it MIGHT just take you longer on Hard but... You command a unkillable team of elites who murder enemies as if they're nothing so difficulty won't affect your playlength that much.

Plus, campaign allows you to use direct fire. You gotta think FPS for that; You toggle between the AI firing or you. Then you just aim and spam click until your opponent is dead. Accuracy and all that stuff that kept it balanced just got thrown out of the window. Not that it matters, as direct-fire is only enabled in single player. Which again - Makes the campaign that much easier and even shorter.

All of it bundled together in a package that costs 30-35$. Steam rips you off so badly, you should be torturing yourself if you bought it from them. Some British online store-ala Steam sells it for 28$. Which still leaves you with the feeling "Did I pay 30$ for this?". Cause, I love the content n' all. It's just not that much.

It feels as if they just smacked the campaigns on the game to justify it's small content. It would've made some fine DLC which I would've paid 15$-20$ if I had to. But like GameInformer/EuroGamer/etc said - It feels like the devs at Relic scraped their DLC ideas together, and sold it for a price of a expansion pack.


And... that Dawn of War II review will come soon™.