Having been part of the Dark Reign 2 closed beta team, I played this game months before it ever hit stores as it was shaped into the game it was. I am no fan of Command and Conquer, and Starcraft just never did it for me. Dark Reign 2, while not what you'd call an interesting game in terms of story, the gameplay and multiplayer were fantastic. This is a game best played against other people, which sadly short of LAN games, really just isn't possible anymore. The AI even on its hardest setting is sadly not that difficult, so do not expect a challenge if you're good with RTS games. That doesn't mean it isn't fun to play custom games against the AI though. So if you want to get the most out of Dark Reign 2, play your own custom games. You can use the campaign as a reference to learn the ins and outs, but that's about all it's good for. Throw yourself in a custom 1vs3 or harder scenario. Personally I'm fond of 1vs1vs1vs1vs1vs1vs1vs1 (me vs 7 AI) on the hardest settings. Maybe I'm biased because of my time during the beta, but Dark Reign 2 is my favorite RTS of all time. It's not about the quality of the story or the graphics or how hard it is, but how much fun you have doing it. Dark Reign 2 was and still is exactly that. Fun!
