Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War Ultimate Collection - 7 Game Boxset (PC DVD)

I don't usually bother to leave feedback on amazon, but I feel it my duty to add my two cents. The game(s) is(are) great and fantastically priced even when you factor in its failings - all the fun of playing the tabletop game, with all the flexibilty of legions genetically engineering super warriors without the hassle of having to pay for and paint an entire chapter of Space Marines. If anything the game's developer, THQ goes a great way to undermining Games Workshop's terrible business strategy of making you pay more for fewer miniatures which are of progressively worse quality and of more and more limited choice.

Aside from that the Dawn Of War Boxset is a great collection and, having played this with friends I was positively surprised to see that all of the games were now available at such a low price. Dawn of War I and its expansions are recognised as classics, features classic voice acting with gems such as 'METUHL BAWKSES!!!' and 'SSSSSSIIIIINDIIIIIII!!!' Dawn of War II, which I hadn't yet played up until this point, is a particular step up from the original, given the smaller and much more limited force size (more like a Kill Team), making for a much more fluid and exciting game. The addition in the expansions for varying levels of corruption add replayability.

HOWEVER, buyer beware, THQ ever so slightly dropped the ball in a few instances here, first and foremost of which is the fact that (as seen in other reviews here) some of the game activation codes are often missing from certain expansions which means you need to contact the developer, send them photos of your game discs, reciept and the too short code strings so they can replace them for you (it only took a couple of days - to THQ's credit but I'd rather not have had to wait in the first place). I was also somewhat shocked at Amazon's and the game supplier's reticence to help resolve the problem simply referring me on to the developer. When I worked in a bike shop and customers came to us with warranty issues with our prodcuts it was our responsibility to liase with the distributors in order to save the customer the headache and waste of time of having to sort it out - a service which Amazon was not willing to supply me; only apologies and referrals - unhelpful.

The other problems are that there are no Game Manuals (not a biggy) and that all the discs in the first game and its expansions are all crammed into the Game Manual holder. I'm at a loss to understand why they couldn't just package it properly; I'd happily pay an extra two or three pounds to guarantee that the discs weren't damaged in transit and I wouldn't have to return it if they were scratched.

All in all a mixed bag, but if you factor into the price the fact that when you receive the game you'll have to wait for new activation codes, it's not all that bad.

Like other reviews here, parts of the CD key are missing for Dawn of War GOTY and Dawn of War II Gold Edition. I haven't received an e-mail from Amazon about it yet. Otherwise, i've been a fan of the DOW series since the original Dawn of War, and was glad I could buy the entire collection for such a low price.

Cd keys for DOW are missing 4 digits; THQ just said tough I'd have to wait; NICE of them. Of course I was silly, they already had my money....