DoW series: Soulstorm, hands down.
First off, the graphics and animation were somehow worse than in DC (especially the new factions)
The story in both DC and SS was hardly there, but SS the worst offender of the two(,ore on that later)
The voice acting was TERRIBLE, especially Crull, Boreale and the narrator
The campaign was also terrible. It was basically a Risk style map like in DC, when you attacked territory it was basically a skirmish match against the pc (the only difference being, that you could have various bonuses if you conquered special territories, and you could have an 'honour guard', which were basically units you purchased in the turn based mode).
Now in DC these skirmishes only required you to destroy the enemy HQ, but in Soulstorm you had to kill and destroy EVERY SINGLE UNIT AND EVERY SINGLE DAMN BUILDING. So if a single construction unit ran off it could just construct an entire new base you had to find destroy. Oh, and the maps were mostly intended for 4 players or more, so you had to spend quite a while before you found it. And you had to do this for in EVERY SINGLE BATTLE.
Well, except for the Strongholds, but that is a whole 'nother can of worms.
The Strongholds: these are special mission in the campaigns of DC and SS. if you attack an enemy stronghold you usually have to kill the enemy commander and destroy the HQ. To get to them was the problem.
Now in DC you were given secondary objectives that would make the assault easier, but they were not required to win the mission. You could just attack the main base in most cases and win if your honour guard and micro management was good enough.
In SS the map was STUFFED with enemy buildings and units, so to stand only the tiniest bit of a chance against the MASSIVE number of enemies, you had to basically clean the ENTIRE map of structures. Not much different from skirmish you might say, but remember, the enemy numbers are HUGE. Also the enemy has unlimited resources and quickly cheats some fully equipped units from their structures into existence.
In some cases, like the Sisters of Battle Stronghold, they throw an invincible superunit at you(living saint), and you have to destroy a specific structure, that is guarded by that very unit and also almost invincible. I had no idea how to destroy these (there were 4 in that mission) so attacking the commander and the HQ was almost impossible. I eventually just ignored the saint and focused on attacking the commander and HQ with everything I got, all the while being shot at by the enemy units. It took hours until I finally managed to get away from the saint, through the enemy armies and to the commander
And there are 8 enemy Strongholds, so if you want finish a campaign with just ONE race, you better have a LOT of patience.
Finally, in DC the commander of your faction and the enemy would exchange some pretty well written banter during the Stronghold missions. It wasn't much, by all means, but it was somethting.
In SS you just get a generic introduction, and when you complete a secondary objective, the enemy basically just says "OH NOES, X was destroyed!", while in DC you had aforementioned witty banter.
I'm not even going into the balancing issues...
Whew, rant over.
So yeah, fuck you Ironlore, I hope you burn in hell!
EDIT:
on the subject of relic my favourite series is probably the dawn of war series I dumped more time in this games than oblivion, the mass effects, fo3 and both kotors (and trust me that's A LOT of time.) but by god soulstorm was THE biggest piece of shit game i have ever played the character models look shit and a MOD TEAM did a better job of making the sisters of battle.
I mean fucking hell the textures on every things fucked, the maps are absolute wank compared to the previous games and the dialogue my god the dialogue the most incoherent babbling I've ever heard and I played phantasy star universe and that shit made no sense.
I could probably rant all day about soulstorm but I'll stop here before I wright a page or two of hate about it.
Don't worry, you don't have to, I already did all the ranting for you
