Dawn of War is a RTS game, based on the Warhammer 40K universe. Needless to say, this is pretty exciting for a geek like me to behold. The intro cinematic is just fucking insanely cool. Space Marines of the Blood Ravens chapter do battle with Orks, and the rendering is very high quality, the loyalty to the 40K universe is very good. I've watched the cinematic at least a dozen times at this point.
The game itself is a competent RTS that also honors a lot of the 40K rules. There is a single player mode, where you take on the task of leading the Blood Ravens Space Marine chapter through a series of battles against Orks, Eldar and Chaos Space Marines. There's a plot linking all the battles together, it's nothing special, but it's still a nice way to string a series of maps together. The resource system is pretty simple, and revolves around capturing points on the map which in turn provide “requisition points” with which troops can be purchased, and building power generators, which allow the construction of vehicles and similar units.
Gameplay is fast, and pretty traditional as RTS games go. The key is to have the right sort of firepower to deal with what your enemy is bringing, and to have it at the right place at the right time. Another facet the game adds is that of cover. Certain areas on the map are marked as cover, mousing over them reveals this, and when you place troops or vehicles in these areas, they are much harder to kill with shooting. Moving squads into cover creates a firebase around which you can maneuver your army. The units in the game closely match those seen in the tabletop version of the game, and upgrades and options throughout the game are also very similar as well. It's definitely fun to see Orks and Space Marines alive on the computer screen, hacking away at each other.
Graphics are good, the models are very detailed when one considers that hundreds of them might be on screen at any given moment, each one busily hacking, shooting and dying away. The game allows the player to zoom in, spin the view, and generally get a good look at the models in battle. This feature is nice, but the game is mostly played zoomed all the way out as this affords the largest field of view.
All in all a fun game, though nothing revolutionary.