Dawn of War III / YMMV

Audience-Alienating Premise: Probably the biggest problem with the game is that, mechanically speaking, it's just not sure what it's supposed to be. It's a weird patchwork of gameplay elements from both the first game in the series and the second, trying to be a new E-Sports game but not much resembling StarCraft beyond a superficial similarity, and tone-wise is trying to have its cake and eat it vis-à-vis the over-the-top physics of a MOBA game and the more realistic ones of prior Dawn of War titles.
Broken Base:
- Some fans were disappointed that there were no Chaos factions in the base game, while others were alright with giving the other races more spotlight.
  - And when it turns out Chaos is the main antagonist, fans divided once more as some thought the creators were too lazy to build up a new threat or eat their words, while some agreed that it's a logical conclusion. Not to mention the Sequel Hook hint that Necrons will be the next threat.
- The fans were divided about the game's new art style and gameplay. One half disliked the art style looking cartoony and stylized (like Starcraft II) rather than dark and gritty and the gameplay being MOBA-esque, whilst the other half was alright with the direction the game was heading and thought that the first half of the fanbase was judging too early, since the game was still in early development at the time.
- Imperial Guard fans raged in particular over the game for two reasons: one, the Imperial Guard faction was merely relegated to expendable NPC status due to the main Mêlée à Trois, and two, the reveal that Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter was the canonical winner of Soulstorm instead of General Stubbs. Others didn't have an opinion of the former, as this was the case in the original Dawn of War, and regarding the latter, thought Gorgutz deserved to win the campaign instead (he already lost in two conflicts). Some also viewed Stubbs with feelings of Hype Aversion, due to IG fans blowing him up into something massive.
- The singleplayer campaign was the focus of many mixed feelings. There were a good number of fans who saw it as a glorified tutorial for online multiplayer, with the narrative overall being extremely weak. Overall, this has caused many people to get the feeling that the game lacks the charm and spirit of the previous Dawn of War games.
- The removal of sync-kills, some believing that they were unnecessary and ruined any competitive potential the RTS series had, while others believed that it was what made the Dawn of War series unique in the genre, and the removal of the animations was done solely for the sake of E-sports.
- Post-launch, the fans constantly bickered amongst themselves if DOWIII is an RTS that's tried to innovate and breathe fresh life into the Dawn of War formula, or that Relic tried and failed to make their game appealing to a wider audience by turning it into an RTS with MOBA elements. Both sides had nothing but kind words and reasonable rebuttals for each other.
- The fanbase exploded when Relic announced it was ceasing support for the game in light of its poor reception and sales, torn between those who considered it a foregone conclusion and that Relic made the right decision to move on to other projects, and those who considered it a betrayal of those fans still remaining to just abandon a fully-priced game less than a year after launch after they added no content more substantial than a few multiplayer maps and three Elite skins.
Critical Dissonance: The game got positive reviews from critics, but a highly mixed reception from fans.
Fanon Discontinuity: Due to the base-breaking quality of the game and the revelation that Ensemble Dark Horse and Memetic Badass Vance Stubbs is not the canon winner of Soulstorm, many fans of the older games have declared this.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The notorious backflipping Terminators from the C.S. Goto books seem downright prophetic given the backlash against Angelos' acrobatics in Terminator armor here.
- Alec Newman (the new voice for Gabriel Angelos) had previously played Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert's ''Dune'', who would father the future God Emperor Leto II. In this game, he is in a setting with another God Emperor and one that owes much of its influence from Dune.
I Knew It!: After the Necron Overlord DLC for Dawn of War 2's Last Stand mode, many fans have speculated that the release of the DLC foreshadowed the announcement for Dawn of War III. About two months later, the announcement trailer proved them correct.
Memetic Mutation:
- You have Chaplain Diomedes! ^Explanation
- Jumping Terminators ^Explanation
Most Wonderful Sound:
- Gaining enough Elite Points to call in an Elite has your announcer letting you know in satisfying fashion, particularly for the Space Marines: "Our Elite battle-brothers are ready for deployment."
- When a Elite comes off of cooldown after being killed, it tends to give a Badass Boast about being ready to return to the fight.
- The Space Marine Standard coming off of cooldown, especially when you desperately need it:
  Announcer: Wouldst thou cast the holy standard?
- Deploying a unit by Drop Pod as the Space Marines results in a very satisfying sonic boom sound as the pod breaches the atmosphere, ready to unleash an asskicking on arrival to the enemies of man.
- Activating a WAAAGH Banner and hearing the resulting roar from all the Orkz around it. The Ork screaming through the microphone might just get you hyped up for the fight ahead.
  Banner Ork: YOU BOYZ WANNA FIGHT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!
Narm: Many think that the design of the Space Marines in the announcement trailer and in-game cinematics, where their body proportions look much thinner and elongated (particularly the legs and arms) and looking less bulky as they are usually portrayed, looks silly. Some have even joked that they went into taking diet pills.
- And let's not get started on "Jumping Terminators" and how ridiculous it is.
Never Live It Down: Since the first gameplay preview, fans frequently expressed their displeasure of "Jumping Terminators".
Nightmare Fuel: The ending cutscene which reveals that the Necrons are coming. Even worse, it sounds as if the Necron Lord's head was laughing as it lit up green.
Older Than They Think: As shown by this piece of unimplemented wargear◊ for Chaos Rising, it seems Relic had always intended for Gorgutz to be the winner of the Kaurava conflict.
Sequelitis: The general consensus is that this game just doesn't stack up to either of its predecessors. In fact, it's become so disliked that unlike the previous games, there will be no expansions for this entry. And as February 8th of 2018 it has likely become a Franchise Killer, seeing as Relic ceased official support citing the game's insufficient sales figures. Even Soulstorm, long treated as a Sophomore Slump for the series, is more fondly regarded nowadays.
- For reference, Soulstorm (considered the definitive multiplayer edition for the first game, at least once the bugs had finally been ironed out) averages about 700 players on Steam at any given time and was released in 2008. Retribution (considered the definitive multiplayer edition for the second game) averages about 400, and was released in 2011. Dawn of War 3, released in 2017, averages under 200 players, far less than either of its predecessors.
Scrappy Mechanic: One much hated issue with Dawn of War 3 during its early cycle was unlocking elite units with Skulls. Skulls were slowly earned from winning in multi-player, leveling up an elite or successfully completing a chapter of the single-player campaign. Relic had intended for players to slowly master their available elites before moving onto new ones... but the reality was that players despised this mechanic, as relatively few players played (let alone won) enough multi-player matches to unlock anything, and even fewer wished to redo the weak-sauce campaign repeatedly with lowering gains each time. Relic eventually addressed this by making all elites available with one of their last patches, while unfortunately still requiring doctrines to be bought with Skulls.
So Okay, It's Average: Those who played the game mostly agree that while there are uncountable flaws that made this game not comparable to the first two titles, this game is alright in its own right.
Tainted by the Preview: Upon seeing the apparent high mobility of Terminators, especially that of Gabriel Angelos in the preview build, some fans called Canon Defilement.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The E3 gameplay reveal video shows Gabriel Angelos, but not voiced by Paul Dobson. This has caused players to express their disappointment that Paul is not returning to voice Angelos, and think his new voice actor is sub-par.
- The lack of rendered cinematics (with cutscenes instead relying upon still images) also didn't sit well with a number of fans.
- The removal of synch-kills was also seen as a blow against the game, since they were one of the franchise's iconic features.

YMMV / Dawn of War III

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