The campaign is about half the size of the original and as fun as it is to mow down swarms of Chaos Cultists and Black Legion Marines, the basic design philosophy remains – in that you are still playing a highly scripted set of missions with little to no true AI and a silly boss battle at the end.

This annoyed me in the original game and it doesn’t serve its purpose any better in the expansion. It just makes no sense to me at all thematically that the big boss guy would wait until the end of the map to basically fight the marines solo rather than lead his/its troops on the field. Not only that but the boss fights are incredibly boring compared to the rest of the missions. It’s a rush to unleash hell on several squads of marines and a Chaos Dreadnought – not so much fun to just target the big baddie at the end of a level with very little cause for strategic planning.

Still, there are some highlights to the campaign – the defensive missions are by far the most enjoyable and there is a set of missions on board a Space Hulk that is not to be missed – particularly if you have played the boardgame of the same name. I should also note that you are presented with more in-mission choices in this campaign; there are moments when you can sort of choose your own adventure, so to speak. Just don’t expect sharp AI or anything like that as everything is still highly regimented and scripted and the bad guys won’t attack you until you enter their area of influence (unless playing a defensive mission).

The story is engaging enough to keep you driving forward to the conclusion which sets up for another installment—cliffhangers abound and longtime 40K fans will love the final cutscene. The cool part about the campaigns in Dawn of War II and this expansion is that I feel as if I have gotten to know these marines. Relic did a wonderful job in giving these guys doses of personality even though they are wrapped inside a stereotype. That’s rare stuff for a strategy game.

If you have been away from Dawn of War II for a while you will be greeted with a lot more content than before, namely more maps and game types. Chaos Rising simply adds another layer onto that. I remain a fairly weak multiplayer opponent but I still enjoy the sessions a great deal as the design is extremely tight and the factions all different enough to warrant loads of experimentation. Multiplayer Dawn of War II is extremely different than the solo game and in fact I personify love playing the game in campaign co-op mode more than the standard multiplayer but your mileage may vary…it may be due to lack of skill on my part.

There are some highly skilled multiplayer mavens out there so I tend to stick to games with friends and people I know online, but if you’re skilled enough you will find no shortage of tough opponents waiting for a game be it a 2v2 battle or a larger 6-player team game.

I’m still a bit miffed at the lack of any Slaaneshi units for the Chaos side and that the campaign still has those annoying boss fights, but Chaos Rising is a worthy expansion to Dawn of War II all the same because, really, Warhammer without Chaos is sort of like Star Wars without the Emperor or Middle-earth without Sauron or the NFL without the Steelers.

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