Space Marine 2 is so awesome!

Space Marine came launched yesterday (pre-orders have been played for 4 days already) and it is absolutely awesome!  After the controversies with Helldivers 2 and its loss of player base over the past couple months, this game is a much needed breath of fresh air.  Not only is Warhammer 40K such a great source of risk lore and possibilities for new content, it separately needed a big success in the gaming space.  

Years ago I was a huge fan of the first Dawn of War game (real time strategy), and have always been around people who played the tabletop game, as I myself had a lot of Eldar minis.  The first thing you'll see about Space Marine 2 is how they absolutely nailed the ambiance and the overall feel of the W40K universe.  Every single location, scene, character and detail oozes the grim dark attitude it should have.  It's complete jammed with lore that hasn't been present in other games, which my co-op gaming partner pointed out in my YT short (over 260k views across multiple platforms!).  IMO, everything looks absolutely perfect.  

The gameplay is also incredibly fun.  The campaign story is engaging and cinematic at the right times, flows really well, lots of "40K" moments, and connects the rest of the game modes in new ways.  Aside from the campaign, one of the brilliant ways they tied it together are the Operations.  In these modes, you play what I call the B team.  As you go through the campaign, there was frequently another team of 3 Space Marines that were doing other objectives aw you played the story. Ops mode puts you in their armor and you get the chance to do what they did.  This mode let's you pick from 6 classes, gain experience and unlock perks and weapons, and customize the look of your space marine.  This is also co-op for up to 3, and each mission, 6 of them, have 4 difficulties.  This whole idea really created a whole new level of engagement with the campaign and opens a lot of ideas to bring new modes.

There's also a 6v6 PVP mode, with 3 modes and 3 maps available at launch.  It uses the same classes from Operations, just on a different experience and rank track.  My first impressions that it's incredibly well-balanced for a new game.  I personally like Sniper and Heavy the most, but everything shows a lot of promise.

Well done, devs.  This game is GOTY material for sure.