Outstanding!
Starcraft II's budget is right there up on the screen. From the moment you boot it up it's clear that this is a lavish package without precedent in PC gaming. Another thing that's nearly unprecedented is a twelve year gap between games in such a gigantic franchise (not counting Brood War). For maybe the first time, Blizzard could afford to actually spend seven or so years on development for a single game.
It's hard to convey exactly how I felt when I was actually playing Starcraft II for the first time. It was surreal! I vividly remember when I first tried out the original Starcraft back in 98. And there I was, a completely different person twelve years older, some grey hairs here and there - exhilarated.
The single player campaign is astoundingly well constructed and simply without equal in the RTS genre. The developers have somehow managed to craft a 15 hour adventure free of repetition, with some interesting new task never far away. The chapter where you have to escape a supernova is just one of these, but it's a great example. The in-between moments are straight out of Wing Commander 3 and 4, but they're fantastic and add a whole lot of depth to both the plot and the characters. It's not long before you start really caring what happens to these people. I desperately wanted resolution between Raynor and Kerrigan, although I won't reveal whether that happens or not. But I really, honestly cared. About characters in a damn RTS.
The multiplayer and Battle.net experience so far, is equally rewarding. I don't see myself reaching the upper echelons of Starcraft tournament play but it's a nice distraction. It's definitely a minute to learn, lifetime to master kind of thing that rewards you in direct proportion to how much time you devote to it.
The campaign alone is worth the price of the product and that should be all you need to know. Blizzard brings that extra something that makes other developers seem lazy.
