I'm Commander TBomb, and this is my favorite multiplayer melee combat game since Rune.

A fun single-player space sim where you lead a team of mercernaries and travel throughout the universe in your mothership taking up contracts to protect, transport or destroy items pertaining to one of the other 6-7 factions in the game. Your ship can hold up to 6 team members and an unlimited amount of cargo. Each character earns xp from missions and kills, which can be applied to their own particular skill tree. You can shop for and configure parts on your mothership and fighters to match your characters' abilities. As the game progresses, newer, deadlier technology will become available. Graphics are decent and gamplay is smooth; only getting buggy when you try to load a save or cutscene while 4x-time is turned on. The campaign is long and the music soundtrack is quite good. This game isn't always easy. You will often find yourself spending a good half hour reloading the same save point to try different strategies or decisions to avoid team casualties. Save often and individually!

This standalone, 2-map survival mode version of DOW Retribution is certainly fun, but it's simply a marketing platform for character DLC (and ultimately the full version of the game). And why not? Everyone knows base building, full company skirmishes are where it's at. The entire DOW series - from 40k, to I and II - is awesome. But THQ needs to come down off their prices and slow down on the DLC money milking machine. The mere sight of all the DLC is nearly overwhelming, and would turn away any frugal shopper. Even for what this standalone is, I'm not entirely sure it's worth $9.99. Thankfully, it was a gift, so I don't have to stew about it.