The best part of having a campaign playable by multiple races is that it gives you a good reason to play things over and over again.

All the while your machine guns lay down suppressing fire while you micromanage small forces to overcome the odds. It's not uncommon for explosions to blast craters in the ground and enemies to crash from the sky, knocking back your infantry. And unlike so many other RTS games, Retribution pushes physics into the mix, making combat a wildly chaotic, violent experience compared to the predictability of something like StarCraft. Retribution, like the Dawn of War 2 franchise in general, is a unique real-time strategy game, forcing the player to focus more on things like cover, unit facing, and general terrain layout more than just manufacturing an overwhelming force. Even if the story isn't as engrossing, the gameplay is as addictive as ever. None of the characters stand out like the previous entries in Space Marines, and Retribution lacks that same sense of attachment that built up during the many, many hours I spent with the campaigns of both the original Dawn of War and the first expansion, Chaos Rising.

It's a clever way of giving you a lot of choice, but it also results in a weaker narrative than the previous Dawn of War 2 games. After selecting an army, you play through 16 missions that are written just vaguely enough that they can work for any force. The Dawn of War 2 series has long been a story about the Space Marines, but Retribution gives your a choice between Space Marines, Tyrannids, Chaos, Orks, Eldar, and the new Imperial Guard.

Dawn of war 2 review egm