Men of War II

A wealth of single player and multiplayer content sadly wrapped in an always online requirement. Men of War II entertains but doesn’t do anything new.

Feeling more approachable than its byzantine predecessors, Men of War 2 is a solid entry into the iconic franchise, keeping its core tenets intact: It’s challenging, highly moddable, and offers tons of ways to experience the game – unfortunately, it comes with the same baggage of jank, preventing it from reaching higher spheres.

If you can look past the clunkiness in the presentation, you'll find some deep and interesting mechanics in Men of War II. The gruelling grind of its combat makes it great for generating stories, though there is a distinct lack of polish.

Men of War II takes a little work to get to grips with, and we're not fond of the always-online requirement. But this WWII RTS's realism, depth and freedom to explore your own strategies still make it a winner.

Men of War II stuck to its nostalgic roots too closely, failing to bring anything new—other than cleaning up its clunky interface from previous games.

A content-packed World War II RTS where the authors took a step in the right direction by simplifying it a bit, but without fundamentally compromising its complexity and attention to detail. But a lot of bugs spoil everything, and it will probably take a long time to get everything working as it should.

A well-playing strategy game with an all too varying difficulty level, weak story, technical imperfections and annoying always-online.

There’s a lot to enjoy with Men of War II but the difficult UI and online push might turn some away.

Men of War II is a solid RTS marred by clunky controls and complicated gameplay, but its worst offense is requiring an internet connection, even for single-player modes. Without that requirement (which, again, is currently meant to change sometime post-launch) and with just a little polish to the controls, UI, or both, this could be a must-have for RTS/WW2 buffs. Fans of the series will probably have an easier time diving in, while new players are likely to find themselves completely lost without going through the tutorials. On the whole, the game feels solid, looks good, sounds good, and has a lot of potential, and its flaws aren't so bad they can't be polished out.