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Company of Heroes 2 came in tumultuous period for a developer. Game was a far cry from what Relic had produced previously and it was a sign to what is to come. Never again they had managed to create game as great as Company of Heroes or Dawn of War. In this reviews I want to express my dislike of what Relic had become.

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This game had one of their worst releases. Due to problems with their publisher, THQ, game was pushed out of the door way too quickly. It came at half baked state which ruined first impression of many people. Game lacked content, was buggy and was unfinished. Relic had left bad taste in people mouths from a get go.

Company of Heroes 2 had signified everything bad about new Relic style. It is stylised and more arcade like. From this point onward, there was no game as deep or as good looking as previous Relic titles.

Graphics
• Relic had decided to take more cartoonish look on its visuals. Colours were saturated. Models lost texture details. This had resulted in tanks looking like made out of plastic. There is no other Relic game from this point onward which would look as good as Dawn of War 2 or Company of Heroes. Dawn of War 3, Company of heroes 2/3, Age of Empires 4. They all have heavily stylised, cartoonish take on its aesthetics. There are no realistic details on models. Textures are clean. Characters lack details. Game lacks weather effects. Environments are clean. Overall, Company of Heroes only went down visually with its two sequels.
  
  Take a look at this example:
  https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2922599251
  
  There is a stark decline in graphical quality between two games. In a first, you have a realistic command HQ which is located in a large building. Building has walls, windows, doors, supplies, vehicles, sandbags, flag pole, flags, lamps. There are so many little details which make it look realistic and good. On the right you see stylised graphics of a second game. There is just a tent and sandbags. Model is a lot simpler and whole scene has over saturated colours. This choice was made solely to make game easier to develop, but by doing so they regressed back in visual quality and they arguably did not recovered from it even in Company of Heroes 3.
  
  Mechanics
  
• Mechanics in this game were also simplified. While first game tried to appear realistic and was innovative in a lot of its mechanics. The second one regressed in them. It focused on adding gimmicks like cold mechanics which went nowhere. Weather effects never played a significant part in a gameplay. Its penetration and armor mechanics were simplified. No longer you had thick armor of German tanks which could resist the penetration. Game became more about two HP bars fighting each other. Even fundamental mechanics like suppression were heavily nerfed in post development and as result, the most effective tactic is blobbing in this game. Game went away from its soft wargamming routes into an RTS. It is a touch which I so loved in the original game and it is something which drove me away from this title.

The most egregious problem with this game is that it is a filthy propaganda game. It heavily distorts reality and it is disrespectful towards several nationalities. Developers had to go on and silence and criticism which their decision to crap on war veterans and people who had suffered through war. They were using distorted, propaganda sources to back up their historic validity. To this day this game stands as a testament to the ugliness and disrespect Relic has for history, for veterans who fought and died in a war. It shows how little they regard their audience and what filth they are more than happy to push upon people.

This video goes into details why this game is filled with despicable propaganda. Developers should be ashamed for their involvement with Company of Heroes 2.

https://youtu.be/2m4SCUaBHS8

The last, but not least is filthy monetisation this game had received. It was spammed with various DLC, often with dubious quality. Game lacked content, but developers had focused on making paid content. Even its co-op content is a paid DLC. Some of its DLC are even their own games which are horribly received. Its commanders also were lazily done and often had similar abilities to free commanders. This game has one of the worst monetisation systems seen in such games.

This product is at the end of its lifecycle. It was broken at the beginning, it is broken now as people cannot log in into the game due to bugs. Company of Heroes 2 stands as a first bad game from legendary developer. It contains all the bad practices which company had continued with its other games. To make matters worse, it is also morally bankrupt game from gross historical propaganda and greedy monetisation methods.

Company of Heroes 2 marked the death of legendary developer. What Relic became from this point onwards was just an empty shell of its former self.