What an incredibly confident, polished game. A huge leap forward from WARCRAFT II and probably pound-for-pound the best game Blizzard has ever made.

Great, balanced races that are each unique and compelling in their own ways. A superb story in single-player (especially for the genre) which isn't particularly deep but has just enough characterization and really excellent voice acting to sell the fairly standard sci-fi drama. A cohesive look and feel that is just cartoony enough, just realistic enough, just violent enough, just goofy enough, just grimdark enough to find some kind of funny balance that seems all its own. Tons of little details in the units and structures and the art to suggest a lot more about the setting than is in the text and fully avoid any kind of exhaustive loredumps.

Really, this game is about the polish. Love and attention in every corner. The kind of game that feels like it must have just appeared one day, fully-formed. Immaculately conceived rather than developed. There are a couple things you could wish were a bit different, but I feel like there are few games that were this destined to be iconic. They must have known how special it was sending it out the door.