Short and Sweet version. Game feels quirky to control and some units feel useless.
Long Version...
The controls feel very awkward compared to Halo Wars One. It doesn't feel nearly as fluid and I felt like I had less control of my army, which is a very bad thing in a game like this.
Allow me to explain why I feel this way:
1) The AI is not very smart. When I spawn on the right side of the map and tell a group to travel to the enemy's side they will move straight left and get stuck staring at the cavern or whatever is in the middle. The AI also makes no effort to move from that spot and then just sits there. While waiting for reinforcements to arrive I find out my group is lazily sitting on the edge of the cliff. This could be a bug but another thing happens that makes me hate the AI.
2) Not performing any actions on their own. This could be good or bad dependent on your point of view but it seems like the AI's aggressive range is far shorter and I had a tank sit behind a wall of infantry and not move or fire upon any units despite being within view range. I also had engineers that didn't seem to auto heal a group of infantry so I had to manually tell them to do it. This is very annoying when a large platoon is damaged and I have to manually tell them to heal each individual unit. It is possible these AI quirks are due to lag or bugs but they are every so slightly noticeable at times that I think it's just stupid AI.
3) Lack of alerts. I had those small outposts around the map and at one point I head the "Base Under Attack" alarm speak but I looked at my main bases and saw nothing so I assumed it was just scouts passing by. A few minutes later they destroyed an outpost and I was shocked. The enemy doesn't show up well on the radar and when I found the group that destroyed the outpost their colors were barely noticeable on my radar. I would want the enemy blips on the radar to be more noticeable or have an alert system that also highlights your map which base they are attacking.
4) Veterancy Status. I have no idea how the veteran troop emblems in this game work. Is it the numbers on top of their heads? I'm so confused. It's hard to tell. This is mostly lack of knowledge since its a new game so this could just be me being dumb lol.
5) Some troops do pitiful damage. I'm looking at you Locust. Seriously for being a building killer it doesn't do any damage. I mean nothing, nada, zippo. I had a tier 2 vehicle upgrade and one locust couldn't even take out 10% of a turret's health after a minute of constant fire. Is this also a bug? It has to be because I've never seen something so broken before. The heavy air unit that locks down into artillery actually did good damage but for taking as long as it takes to make and upgrade to it didn't seem nearly as powerful as it should have been. It feels like some units just don't do anything and are quite literally useless or underpowered for how much population they take up.
6) Lack of upgrades. This applies to only a few units. As far as I know, Rangers do not have any upgrades and I feel like they should at least have a beam rifle upgrade or cloaking ability. Engineers don't get anything. Granted they are strictly healers but even in the first game they could move faster and heal faster when upgraded.
7) Sticky controls. Now I say this by meaning the radius for selecting a unit or building feels stiff. If my base is below my screen and I try to move up to select troops in front of it I keep selecting the base even though my cursor looks like it's not even on it. This could be the troop magnetism and could be toned down in the menu but I was too lazy to check at the time.
