I still play Starcraft and I'm no sure SC2 is going to sell that well. IMO playing

a lan game with friends is a must. SC2 is missing LAN option and having to be

logged in to play SC2 in other minus in my book.

Get ready for the first blizzard cash raking operation this year.

I never was into Starcraft, but I've taken a look at it, and from a non-fanboy perspective, it looks like any other conventional RTS on the market. Typical base building, fast gameplay, three very different factions, and the like. Plus, Blizzard divided the game into three parts to make more money, and they've set the price at 60 bucks (Activision/Infinity Ward really started a bad trend setting COD:MW2 at $60)

Bottom line, I won't be buying it. I'd rather play RTS games that are more original and unique, like Sins of a Solar Empire and Supreme Commander. Even if this game turns out to not good, they still will rake in billions.

Meh, SC2 will not be something to look forward too I'm sure. It will like the original too much but with improved graphical stuff and such. The concept of the RTS where you toss units at each other like that no longer interests me, I prefer anything where thinking is favored over fast clicking.

What DRM will this game have? Do I have to put my balls in a vice whilst playing to prove my worth??

so just to provide a counterpoint to all you gaming hipsters -

1.  It's $60.  Just like WCIII was...  It has nothing to do with Activision, nothing to do with Bobby Kotick, and everything to do with products polished beyond what 99% of the developers out there can offer. 

2.  LAN is a big deal when you live in a dorm.  No one else cares. No seriously, unless you are living Dead Poet's Society this isn't a reason to boycott. 

3.  200 APM is what the top players are looking for.  There will be many millions who are trundling along at 50 APM right beside you, and many millions more who don't know what APM stands for who will still pick the game up. 

4.  The single-player campaign will take between 20-50 hours.  The campaign allows you to customize your units, interact with several environments outside of the missions, and features missions with interesting and novel gimmicks.  And then you have a perfectly whole map/mod editor people are using to make 3rd person shooters, Tetris, and RPG campaigns, with a sophisticated rating system attached. 

I'm not even a fanboy, I just don't understand why, if you like RTS at all, you would pass on this one.  I've spent the last several years playing games that have 'something' right but still lack somewhere else - this is the first game in a while that will have it all right where it should be, imo

I used to think SC was just throwing units at each other as well. However, after watching a lot of top level matches and recently getting into beta, I would argue the mental aspect is just as important, if not more so, then fast clicking. Fast clicking is essential, don't get me wrong, but people with decent micro who are smarter and adapt better will outplay fast clickers in the long run.

It's a shame there's no real competition on the competitive RTS front at moment.  C&C4 and SupCom 2 were disappointments, and Dawn of War 2 was too dumbed down compared to Relic's other titles.  The whole 'build peons, mine gold' gameplay mechanic is tired and needs to disappear.  Dawn of War 1, Company of Heroes, and even Sins of a Solar Empire were on the right track with their core gameplay, but suffered from poor matchmaking systems and bad balancing.  Starcraft 2 has a fantastic matchmaking system and continuous patch support from the company that rakes in truckloads of cash from the most successful MMO ever made, but dull, tired gameplay mechanics.

My friends and I prefer RTS' for our multiplayer gaming fix, so I'll probably have to get this.  I don't see myself playing it outside of arranged team games though.

There won't be any LAN support for SCII so don't bother looking forward to that.

DRM sucks

Also after 12 years you think they would be able to make a couple new factions or at least some subfactions.. think kane's wrath

Also there should be a lot more new units than there is after all this time. 

I am happy that they didn't change the mechanics however.  The mechanics are what make each series what it is and changing it just makes it a different game with just the name in common.

And only one playable campaign.  I like playing as the Protoss the best. I have to wait for the 3rd installment just to play a campaign with them.  And they will probably try to charge 60 for all 3 installments. 

This is my complaint for the new diablo as well.  Didn't they see how many choices and the dual classing that Titan Quest had ?  The new classes in diablo 3 are just rehashes of the original ones anyway. 

My conclusion is that money has turned Blizzard into the new EA.  And I don't think they are just taking their time to make it right they are just postponing whenever they have to come out with a new expansion for WoW because some other MMO has taken some of their share away.  

I might still buy the game but not until I see it for less than 30 bucks.

Frankly, SCII just doesn't do enough to warrant purchasing it.  If I wanted to play Starcraft, I'd reinstall it.  Over 9 tenths of the player base is going to be in it for the competitive multiplayer and I'd be surprised if they even look at the Single Player campaign, which will require two further purchases to see through to the end.  They want to 'pwn n00bs' and 'melt faces!111!1' and as such, like all Blizzard titles, the community is going to be filled with whiney little children and griefers.  The best strategies have already been uploaded to YouTube, and matches boil down to the same handful of variations we see in Starcraft.  New tactics are rendered useless due to the sheer military grade percission of the 4 minute Zealot Rush and other insane strategies.  No thanks.

From my time with the Beta, Starcraft 2 offers Starcraft gameplay with different units and graphical updates, which are frankly entirely pointless because they're keeping the perspective the same.  Shit, I'd have been happier with high resolution sprites - the Art Style would be more unique and interesting than the bastard child of WoW and the original Starcraft we're being subjected to now.  After ten years worth of genre evolution and games ripping off Starcraft, I'm truly sad to see it's own sequel doing the exactly same thing as everyone else.  Instead of taking ten years to perfect a new beast of RTS, they've simply bumped the resolution up a few notches and seperated the insanely hardcore from the wannabes and the casual crowd.  A fan mod for the original Starcraft could replicate the advances seen in Starcraft II.  Warcraft III changed things up considerably from Warcraft II and became it's own game and it worked a treat; Warcraft III plays very different to its predecessors and at the same time is still, clearly, a sequel.  It's a shame to see the desire for Starcraft II to be the tent-pole eSports title restrict their desire to evolve the game or genre and really show the world how to do something different.

Instead, they taken ten years to polish.  Now, Blizzard's level of polish is, as always, equalled only by the absolute elite of the industry, namely id and Valve, so the game isn't be bad in any stretch, it's simply Starcraft: HD Edition.  For some, that's more than enough reason to lay down the cash, for others it'll be the fact that the latest RTS from Blizzard has arrived and they want in on the ground floor of the next eSport title so they can pwn n00bs and melt faces!!11!!1.  For me, that's simply not enough to warrant the AU$100.00 price tag - considering to see the end of the story I'll need to buy two more games.  Prepare to see the same reviewers who rate other RTS games lower because they mirrored Starcraft's mechanics without variation handing out full marks for Starcraft II for those exact mechanics, claiming it's polished it's mechanics to unprecedented levels until it shines when it fact its simply dressed up the game with some nice graphics and industry leading online support.  A good game, but not what was needed to justify ten years worth of waiting.  As for RTSs in general, it seems I'll be playing Supreme Commander until the end of the world, because for the next ten years everyone will just be trying to be Starcraft II instead of Starcraft.  How sad.

@Zehdon - While I too think SC2 is really just SC1.5, there's one important reason to consider as to why Blizzard wants to keep it that way.  SC1 is still mind-blowingly huge in South Korea, so in the interests on maximizing revenue they want to keep things as similar as possible so that everyone currently playing SC1 will move to SC2 without missing a beat.  If they tried something new like they did with Warcraft 3, they risk the change not being well received.  They might have been willing to risk the Warcraft franchise since (this was before WoW) it wasn't nearly as popular and figured it was worth trying something innovative.  This isn't the case with SC, and like any big company these days, Blizzard is playing it overly safe with their big franchise.  And boring.

Just can't get excited about SC2. I loved SC dearly. As noted, from the look and sound of things, I could just fire up SC and play that but if I did I fear that SC2 would suddenly seem, 10 years old too. 

Why not just make SC2, as is, for the Korean market place (if that has any basis in truth as to why they didn't change it), and then something new and different for everyone else, and any Koreans who would also like something... fresh...