Warcraft II offers many missions (52), so there's a lot to play. But since there are no scripted events in the missions, they mostly offer the same experience: build and defend your base while recruiting your army to the point where you can defeat your enemy. Only a few missions fall outside of this structure and the expansion doesn't bring much positive in this regard. For the most part, this is a map pack in which you repeat what you did in the last 3-4 missions of the main campaign. The difficulty increases a little, but there's nothing new, you just have the same abilities as at the end of the main game, and then you get 20+ new missions where you just play as you did at the end of the main campaign. This is where a good story could help keep you engaged, but unfortunately Warcraft II prefers to tell the background of the world in the manual, while the actual story is told in the mission briefings, without anything story-relevant then happening in the missions. Remember that there are no script events in this game. A mission therefore only offers what was there in the first place, no surprises, not even dialog. You can just read the manual, watch the briefings and cutscenes and you've already experienced most of the story this game has to offer. In conclusion, Warcraft II is not a bad game, I had fun with it, but despite the massive content, it just lacks interesting moments. If you're looking for skirmishes, you'll find plenty here, but if you're more into a compelling story and interesting missions that are also varied and offer different challenges and play styles, there's not that much here for you. Frankly, once you've completed one of the main campaigns (14 missions each), you've seen everything this game has to offer, the other 30+ missions are just more of the same. For some this may be perfect, for others I think there are better options. If you're here for the story, YouTube is your friend, or read the manual.
There is a game with a nice story, interesting missions and sufficient controls that is worth looking back to the beginnings of the RTS genre. Unfortunately, this game is not Warcraft Orcs and Humans, but its successor Warcraft 2. In fact, at least in my opinion, there is no reason to play the first Warcraft, since the second part improved its predecessor in every way: Warcraft has poor controls. You can select up to four (4!) units at once, but of course only if you hold down the Ctrl key while selecting them. There is no right mouse button support, so you select your unit, press the appropriate key (m for move, a for attack, etc.) and then press where you want to perform the action. Partially, this can be fixed (use AutoHotkey), but Warcraft 2 is the definitive version in this regard. As for the story, you can read it in the manual. Nothing is really explained in the game itself. The story is just there to give you a reason to fight the other faction. Nothing more, nothing of interest except the manual. And unfortunately, it's very obvious where it all ends: Each faction has a campaign with 12 missions, and each mission is set in one of the 12 parts of the world map. To some extent, this is an interesting idea: you play on the same world regardless of the faction you choose and you visit the same parts of the map, you even play on the same levels. But this is also a problem: There are very few unique missions for each campaign, and everything else looks and plays not different than the other campaign. Once you complete one campaign, you've basically finished the game. Warcraft 2 may not be the most varied game in terms of mission design, but the campaigns tell different stories, offer different levels, and with the addon there's even a lot to play. In summary, Warcraft has poor controls, there is nothing really interesting to experience, and even if you think about trying it out, there is a very similar game that does everything better and offers so much more.
