I have the OG Company of Heroes. Is it gud?
Sorry
Company of Heroes is considered by some the most balance and well made RTS of all time. (* or so I hear).
Company of Heroes 1 is outstanding. I played it late in it's life before CoH2 was released and had so much fun online.
I didn't touch the campaign since I'm mostly an multiplayer focused gamer when it comes to RTS and the like.
Original game has 4 factions
Original Factions - USA & Wehrmacht
Expansion - Great Britain & Panzer Lehr (Basically SS in all but name)
USA is very mobile and combined arms based.
Wehrmacht is more static and heavy weapon based
Great Britain has a focus on infantry and static defenses
Panzer Lehr is almost entirely mechanized forces and few but elite units (they were my favourite to play.)
I'm not sure how active the online is for this game, but if you like campaigns you could play through it before CoH2.
Is a big mistery for me what Relic is doing...is really hard for me to believe that the only thing they are working at the moment is in upgrades and DLC for COH2...there has to be something else.
CoH2 has a 'Five Year Plan' apparently, so there is probably a LOT of focus put on keeping it monetized and profitable for a while. As George says, there is probably a new Dawn of War coming too.
I hope they're getting their own campaign and not just thrown in as an after thought.
Unlikely they are getting a campaign, I believe a lot of British/Allied campaigns were already explored in Ardennes Assault, the faction is primarily for multiplayer. I don't like that it will now be 3 Allied factions to only 2 Axis factions (although they might next make Italy or some other Axis faction next), but they basically noticed that the Axis Factions were more popular online so they are introducing UK Forces to try and balance the player base.
Adding an allied faction is by no means an afterthought though, if anything multiplayer involves far more work than a campaign. They are constantly patching for balance and there is a healthy community playing the game online. They also want to make the game 'e-sports' ready (I'm not 100% convinced it's right for it, but a good goal), so adding a faction to multiplayer is a pretty big deal.
We can probably expect Commandos, Valentine Tanks, Firefly Shermans and Churchill Heavy Tanks to be featured.