Its a stripped down version of an RTS. No base building, workers, or resources. Unit and upgrade variety are very low for each faction. Combat is also an overly simplistic rock paper scissors system. You can barely field any units to the battlefield.

Because of that, it feels less like a strategy game and more like micromanagement. You have to constantly micromanage your army composition while also spreading out your units over an entire map, because resources are based on controlling nodes. So you're running in circles to constantly defend your stuff. Lose a command point, go take it back, which takes 5 minutes. In the meantime, another control point got taken so you run back to retake that one too, and then you just lost the one you rebuilt. Rinse and repeat. Its a very tedious back and forth tug-of-war situation that makes matches feel like a slog.

I think what they were trying to do is make an RTS that's more thoughtful. Less focus on maximizing APM, predefined build orders, and massing units into a mindless death ball and attack moving like SC2. That's why the units move and fight a lot slower. And I totally respect that goal, because SC2 combat is lame.

However, slowness does not make a thoughtful RTS game by itself. It can certainly help, but its only one piece of the puzzle. Without bases and other RTS elements, all you're doing is micromanaging the units, making the slow speed of the game a detriment rather than an advantage. If there was more stuff to do in your base, more of an emphasis on macro-management, this would actually complement the slower paced combat very well. But since the combat is all there is, it gets very finicky and boring, fast.

Another problem is there only being one match type, which is control all the objectives. I always hate this in RTS games because its such an abstract victory condition. If I have a much better economy and army strength than the AI, and more control points captured, obviously my forces would eventually win, so why does the enemy still win because a lone orc was scratching its ass on some random rock that the developers decided was important because reasons?

The story is nothing great either. Maybe if it was on par with the quality of WC3 it could have supported the shallow game-play, but its nothing special.

Its a stripped down version of an RTS. No base building, workers, or resources. Unit and upgrade variety are very low for each faction. Combat is also an overly simplistic rock paper scissors system. You can barely field any units to the battlefield. Because of that, it feels less like a strategy game and more like micromanagement. You have to constantly micromanage your army composition while also spreading out your units over an entire map, because resources are based on controlling nodes. So you're running in circles to constantly defend your stuff. Lose a command point, go take it back, which takes 5 minutes. In the meantime, another control point got taken so you run back to retake that one too, and then you just lost the one you rebuilt. Rinse and repeat. Its a very tedious back and forth tug-of-war situation that makes matches feel like a slog. I think what they were trying to do is make an RTS that's more thoughtful. Less focus on maximizing APM, predefined build orders, and massing units into a mindless death ball and attack moving like SC2. That's why the units move and fight a lot slower. And I totally respect that goal, because SC2 combat is lame. However, slowness does not make a thoughtful RTS game by itself. It can certainly help, but its only one piece of the puzzle. Without bases and other RTS elements, all you're doing is micromanaging the units, making the slow speed of the game a detriment rather than an advantage. If there was more stuff to do in your base, more of an emphasis on macro-management, this would actually complement the slower paced combat very well. But since the combat is all there is, it gets very finicky and boring, fast. Another problem is there only being one match type, which is control all the objectives. I always hate this in RTS games because its such an abstract victory condition. If I have a much better economy and army strength than the AI, and more control points captured, obviously my forces would eventually win, so why does the enemy still win because a lone orc was scratching its ass on some random rock that the developers decided was important because reasons? The story is nothing great either. Maybe if it was on par with the quality of WC3 it could have supported the shallow game-play, but its nothing special.