I've been playing Red Alert 3 all weekend, and while it's pretty much the same old RA2, I think things have changed in the RTS genre and this game, and here are some things that I don't like.

What ticks me off is that you have to defend against 3 possible attack routes - air, ground, and sea. What I generally do is build air and ground defenses, but if the opponent launches an all out attack on those routes, I'm screwed. So If I build ground attacking vehicles, I can own the opponent, but I get screwed when it comes to air combat, because airships can take out my tanks. Ships are powerful, but useless when the opponent moves theyre base inland, so your destroyer army can be screwed over easily.

Some call this balance, but I just hate it now. With something like CoH, where a game was won by better battle management, not by who can building the most units, each game can be different. With Ra3, there's one strategy that you generally use to thwart the enemy, and that's to flood them with units after scouting out their weakness. Sure, that takes some smarts, but for the most part, it's a pretty dumbed down process.

So basically, my beef with Red Alert 3 is that there's not enough variety to the gameplay, and not enough skill are required - there are some units and factions in-game that are noticeably more powerful than any other, and once you know what they are (and how to counter theyre weakness), you're set. I'd like a little more depth to the game.

This is rather ironic, because when I first played CoH, I complained about its depth. Now I think that it's what makes a good game - micromanagement of a limited number of classes and units, for real battlefield simulation.

Also - I HATE RUSHING. It's a cheap tactic, and if both sides do it, it only promotes random deathmatching, stalemates and lucky victories.

The closest I've gotten to starcraft is watching other people play it. How is it in this regard?