It's been well over a year since the last instalment of the Dawn of War franchise, Dark Crusade, was released - and that is quite the lengthy period of time for keeping a series going. With that said, the original Dawn of War, released around four years ago, was a robust real time strategy game, as well as being a Warhammer game that wasn't awful, and the subsequent expansions have all been enjoyable, each bringing something new to the table.

The latest addition to the series, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm, focuses on the arrival of two new races; the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle. The Dark Eldar are, exactly as their name indicates, evil Eldar. Whilst they look like a more sinister, spikier version of the Eldar, they play quite significantly different to their smoother brethren. The best way to summarise their approach is that they are more of a raiding party than an arm; they are very fast, but also very fragile, and they can put pressure on the enemy pretty early on into the game. The ability to sustain pressure in a long battle is where the Dark Eldar fall down tactically (think of them as the exact opposite of the Necrons). They can, however, harvest souls out on the battlefield, which act as a source of fuel for a series of spells that can be cast to back up their attack. Anything more than a short battle mind though and I wouldn't put my money on the Dark Eldar coming out as the victors.

The Sisters of Battle meanwhile are a strange choice for a new race, considering how redundant they are in the actual tabletop game - and even more so when a great, popular race like the Tyranids are still missing from the fray. The Sisters themselves are essentially armoured nuns that take the word 'fanatical' to an entirely new level. As with the Dark Eldar, the Sisters have a spell system to utilise, but it is fuelled by 'Faith' as opposed to souls. Aside from this though, it generally feels like you're playing a race that sits somewhere in between the Space Marines and the Imperial Guard, making them quite tricky to play with as a result.

The only other significant addition to this expansion pack is the inclusion of an 'air' unit for each of the races (minus the Necrons, who get a new upgrade to the Necron Lord, entitled the Essence of the Deceiver). I say 'air' in quote marks because the units behave more like hovercraft than they do planes, which makes traversing certain terrain like large walls quite problematic. Enabling the camera to zoom out further should have been a must when including these new units, as it's quite easy to lose your aircraft while shuffling around the map. These units certainly add an element of speed to the gameplay, but with the exception of the Tau's Barracuda, the flying units are best suited to fighting other flying units, which does limit their usefulness on the battlefield.

The campaign is pretty much exactly the same skirmish-based outing as it was in Dark Crusade, but with the map now based around a series of moons instead of a single planet. The only real bit of interest for me in here is fighting the Stronghold battles against each faction. Despite the wide variety of maps on offer, the rest of the battles are all very samey and get quite tiresome when you consider that there are thirty-one territories (including the strongholds) to conquer. The only variation comes with the take & hold scenarios that involve trying to control warpgates (which allow you transport between the planets) and these can be won in under ten minutes simply by taking you and your bodyguard to quickly capture three of the five points before the AI can amass a force to stop you.

The AI itself appears to be the same as before, so it fluctuates between being too easy and too hard. As a rule the AI won't advance past tier two of the technology tree, regardless of the difficulty setting; instead, how quickly and constantly they attack is what varies. On the easy setting you get attacked by the meat shields and the grunts in small waves, whereas on a harder setting you get attacked by the meat shields, the grunts and a few elite soldiers/vehicles en masse, constantly. There just doesn't seem to be a happy medium that gives you a challenge, but is still winnable.

Graphically the game hasn't changed and so, while not being up there with the newest of RTS titles, it's still a very aesthetically pleasing game to behold, especially with the overly violent style and countless explosions. There are some nice new animations for the new races, but no real additions to the older races. The same goes for the audio component; nothing has really changed bar the quotes and effects for the new races (special mention to the Sisters of Battle for making me burst out laughing when a nutcase Sister shouts "Behold! The Immolator!" whenever a new one is constructed), but the sound and music are still entertaining and immersing.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm doesn't offer an awful lot of new content, aside for the new maps for skirmishes and multiplayer. The multiplayer is still the highlight of this series and tactically decimating your opponent or friends is a source of endless enjoyment, but the single player in this expansion fails to inspire; there needed to be more involvement with the running of your territories (see the Total War series) for a map-based campaign to work and be really engaging. As for the new races, I prefer to slaughter them with my favoured Tau than actually play as them. If you have been a fan of this series since the beginning then you'll still enjoy this expansion, but if you are new to the Dawn of War franchise then I'd recommend buying the Dawn of War Anthology before you decide whether or not to take a look at Soulstorm.

Reviewed by Tom Selwyn for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).