Gameplay:
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The gameplay of SC2 is superb. While some lament its decision to stay true to its old-school RTS roots invented back in the nineties, I cherish Blizzard for being bold enough to let it bask in its own simplistic-but-hard-to-master roots. StarCraft 2 feels like the Tetris of fast-paced strategy games.
It's not the World of Warcraft of strategy games like a lot of people seemed to expect it to be, but it's the best fast-paced hardcore strategy game you'll find. And the campaign does these mechanics a great justice; it plays with the mechanics, easing you into the finer aspects of multitasking and micro-management over time, all the while keeping the gameplay interesting by changing the playing field and the rules constantly. The story supports the gameplay perfectly, giving you an intellectual reason to keep on playing.
You can change the difficulty any time you want in between missions, meaning you're never locked into a tight spot if you find a mission is too hard for you on your current difficulty.
It's great fun while it lasts, and it can last quite a while if you want to get all the achievements and unlock all the extra portraits. Not to mention the fact that the multiplayer aspect is a potentially endless hobby, one that will provide hundreds upon hundreds of hours if you're into the competitive aspects of multiplayer gaming.
Story:
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There is a problem with the StarCraft II that you won't be aware of if you haven't read a lot about it beforehand, filtering out the preconceptions from the legitimate complaints, which is that the game is not a complete single player game. Although most of us know Wings of Liberty is the first part of a trilogy, I believe few of us were prepared for what this actually means.
You see, the campaign ends so abruptly, there isn't even a cliffhanger to get you psyched up for the next installment. When the last and severely short cinematic faded into black and the credits started rolling, it felt like a fluke. As if watching a movie from a scratched disc that suddenly skipped to the ending, leaving out the essential last minutes of dialogue. My gripe is not that Wings of Liberty does not complete the story, but rather that it doesn't even try to wrap up its own part of it. It was a tremendous disappointment, even for me, who bought the game mostly for the multiplayer aspects.
Summary:
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First of all, if you plan to buy Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty for the multiplayer, you don't really need a reason. This is StarCraft, and it's better than ever.
However, if you plan to buy it purely for the single player experience, you need to ask yourself what's most important; the story or the gameplay. If you buy it for the former, you will be very disappointed. But if you buy it either purely for the gameplay experience or at least for both gameplay and story, you'll feel content even despite its somewhat amputated ending.
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