Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm

Meaning the official Warhammer 40K RTS with the actual Warhammer 40K license. The version I'm giving this a rating is not the bugfest that is the vanilla one - the one with the honour of introducing me to my current favourite faction of the IP, the adepta sororitas, as well as the dark eldars - which I didn't really play that much back in the day since I became bored pretty quickly with it but to the version with the Unification Mod added, which adds a lot of content to the base game for all factions that makes it updated to the current Warhammer 40K Lore (for example, amongst the soulstorm mods it's the only one with the amazing looking Paragon Warsuit and Canoness Morgenn Vahl in it) and, with the unification campaign extended mod, it even throws the possibility of playing new factions in the conquest of the Kaurava system like Tyranids, two branchs of the Inquisition, Chaos Deamons etc. Etc. Good stuff that it just feels good to do, even if there are some minor setbacks and in particular the fact that the fortresses of the new factions are limited to boring defense missions against waves of enemies which are a bit nonsensical IMHO (I'm not a fan of defense missions in RTS unfortunately). For the rest, I have nothing bad to say to the unification mod, all the contrary it elevates the base experience - which, to be honest, was clearly done by people with zero knowledge about the Warhammer 40K lore in a rushed way to capitalize on the good reputation Dark Crusade gained amongst the RTS fans, me included - to a really enjoyable thing overall. I can't wait for the upcoming release of version 7.0 to see what the unification mod has in mind!

Oh and I don't care what the naysayers say, the cover art of the DVD of this game - the last Dawn of War iteration ever produced to my knowledge - is supercool. Adepta Sororitas on a purple background = instant love.

Edit: if you play the unification campaign mod just use the win button for the useless placeholder fortresses and avoid them alltogether. I don't care if the team behind the mod has problems with my solution because of their hordes mode fetish (in a RTS?!), just use the win button and avoid wasting time on them alltogether.

Soulstorm, the final expansion of the first Dawn of War, features almost identical gameplay to Dark Crusade, with a few changes.

They could have combined it with Dark Crusade instead of releasing it separately. Again, it has a very shallow campaign mode that consists of capturing certain areas on the map to win. What I don't understand about the Warhammer 40K series in general is why they've spent decades writing a massive backstory lore spanning hundreds of books. Because they never had the intention of making a story-oriented game that would truly reflect these. If your goal is story, I recommend you stay away from Dark Crusade and Soulstorm DLCs. Their story content is so superficial that it barely fills even a few pages, and their gameplay is frustrating and boring. You can learn whatever story they are telling by opening it and reading it on the Wiki page.