It's important to point out distinctions where they exist. Agreed that brood war is at a higher level mp-wise than sc2, but sc2 has only been out for a week. Brood war has been out for 8 years or so, and when it first came out it was broken as shit.

The groundwork of sc2 is at a far higher level. Like xel-naga towers, destructable rocks, gold mins, cliff jumping/climbing, and stuff like mules/injection/queens etc etc. the fundamentals are beyond BW, but don't misunderstand. BW is an expansion released for SC. SC2 is not an expansion to BW. I think a lot of people confuse those two things. Sequels are not expansions. They are supposed to be improved versions or continuations. Right now, the basics are improved over sc1 and BW. The game just isn't as developed yet.

IMO

In the end though, SC2 is basically Brood Wars for noobs. I'm not even good at BW and I can tell you that SC2 is just dumbed down and noobified.

As for the campaign, it was barely varied at all. Just about all the missions were "build up a base and defend it while building a small strike force to wipe out the rest." Some missions were even just "defend your base, period." As for the random missions here and there, like Tosh's last one, they had those sneaky infiltration missions in SC1 as well. As I said, the most "wow" part of the campaign was the "Lost Viking" arcade. Furthermore to win each mission you basically just had to spam the unit you unlocked at that mission and you usually won. Like the one where you ahd to kill buildings before Kerrigan does, just build a few medivacs and you can skip just about all the zerg forces.

Also to the above post, there are some new mechanics, biggest one being no LOS when something is shooting you from a cliff, but again anything that is born that's creative Blizzard usually patches out. Granted that was mostly in the beta, but I don't see how retail will be any different.

I have 3 more missions to do on brutal. I thought it was really fun myself.

Yes, ABSOLUTELY. I don't have many friends that play computer games, and yet a bunch of them have decided to purchase SC2 thanks to trying it briefly from 7 hour guest passes. It's spreading like a virus. Every copy comes with 2 guest passes, and more and more of my friends (who were neither big PC gamers, nor RTS fans) love it. I, who am a PC
gamer, and a big RTS fan, also love it. It holds up the SC name very well. And yes, if you are of the vocal minority that love chat rooms and LAN, then you'll feel something missing. However, as someone who just wants to log online and play games vs players of equal skill (or with friends) - it's amazing. And I can't see how anyone is complaining about the single player campaign at all. For me, most RTS game's single player was a snooze, or something worth blitzing to see how the story panned out. I'm actually enjoying SC2's. It's very well done.

I think Blizzard was trying to get the player to understand how different units worked. And in that they were successful. A lot of the brutal missions I've beaten are due to the abilities of the units that I would have only known about had I really needed to use them.

EDIT: Just to add on a little bit.

Brutal mode I think is what really helps me enjoy the single player. In most every level, you simply cannot kill the enemy, and have to think of creative ways to win. So far in Brutal, the levels that have really been tough and very strategy and tactic reliant have been welcome to the jungle, supernova, the one where tychus gets a thor, and the final prophecy mission. You really have to know unit strengths and weaknesses in order to even get halfway through the level.

Except that they introduce new units all the way up until the end. Maybe it's my fault for playing on Hard instead of on Brutal, but I never failed anything except once on the ver last mission. Also, if you even half-ass a normal terran multiplayer build order, you are nearly 100% guaranteed to succeed. It's very disappointing. The fact the overwhelming majority of the missions are variations of"defend a little and send out your strike force" is also very disappointing. I mean hell, most of the missions I did was just defend and send out the mercenaries to wipe out everything.

The story also sucked, is incomplete, and is just terrible. The most fun of the entire campaign were the Protoss missions, which is kind of sad considering this is the Terran release.Though, even that first Zeratul missoin was a blatant copy of the TFT mission where Maiev is in the tomb of Sargeras. All the way down to the use of blink. The entire campaign felt anti-climactic and copied from WC3. As it stand right now, including mission variety, inovation, etc. etc. The Frozen Throne campaign was far better than SC2's entire campaign. Also the final cinematic was absolutely amazing in TFT and SC2's was pathetic.

Edit I can see where you are coming from on those brutal missions, but I still can't see how I would have changed how I went on to finish them on Hard. I just roll up my mercenary siege tanks surrounded by all the other types of mercenaries, and I proceed to fucking decimate anything in the radius of the tank. Then move up and repeat. Also the final prophecy mission was awesome. I had 3 rolls of photon cannons at each entrance. If I had been prepared to have nydus worms come out of my ass as well I would have easily gotten the Blzae of Glory achievement.

P.S. Artanis sure has upgraded his aircraft.

@vlad321: Cross-region play was probably cut off because long distances always mean big lag, however good servers you have. If you are in USA and are playing against someone who is in europe, you will always have noticeable lag. Even if connections would be perfect, lag would still exists because it physically impossible to get rid of it. I doubt Blizzard would want complaints about lag which is completely unsolvable. The only way to experience lag-free gaming (even in theory) is not to play cross-region.

The only way how to get cross-region without lag is if data could go faster than light. And, right now, it isn't possible.

If they were so concerned about lag they should have left LAN in. No matter what you hear, I can tell you that there were definitely times of lag during the beta even when I was on my own region. Also considering that my ISP is sitting on top of the trans-atlantic backbone means I have the same ping when conected to people in EU as people would call normal when playing with people in their own region.

Dont buy that laptop from Best buy. Its an ASUS g73 and ive had nothing but problems with mine. Also as far as upgradeability goes your going to be limited with a laptop. If you want to upgrade down the road build a Desktop.

You're absolutley correct. SC2 has better production values, a more solid engine, better editor, better ladder system, better speed, etc, but as of now, BW is still a better game whereas SC2 has potential that remains unfulfilled. If that potential is fulfilled or not depends on the expansions and patches, and how the competitive play develops.