The buildings look pretty lively, which is nice, but the lack of execution kills and the melee attack animations look a bit much with all the particle effects

I don't understand what people have against particle effects...

It's not like explosions and effects make the game less gritty. If the corpses still fly and the blood still flows, why do people care that they're using other colors besides dystopia grey and apocalypse brown? The warhammer factions have always been vibrant and colorful.

Have the devs confirmed no executions or are people just assuming there aren't because pre-alpha footage isn't showing it?

I was very down on the aesthetic in general originally, mainly because of the difference between the grim and gritty environment in the trailer and the colorful and lively "saturday morning cartoons with blood" appearance of the game. While EC can be as bright, I still feel like the character of the universe and factions is better communicated than in the DOWIII gameplay we've seen.

I do like the effect that it has on the Orks, though, because while they should still be big and serious enough to be threatening there is a degree of spirit and levity inherent in their nature that I think was captured well in EC and also comes across pretty well in the preview. The living buildings was kinda odd but I did enjoy all the idle animations we saw.

There were only two things I didn't really like from the preview:

1). I get that the giant claw is heavy because it's so large, but the way Gorgutz was swinging it around just looks so limpwristed and weak. A Warboss's movements should be powerful, not flailing.

2). The gorkonaught charge-up ranged attack from the left arm had a really weirdly slow projectile. Is that supposed to be a Zzapp weapon? It looks like it's lobbing glowy beachballs or something (the mental sound effect I got was vssSSSSTTT-boop-). And, for all that the 'naught itself was impressive to watch move, I wasn't really feeling the power from it that we've seen from the Knight in previous promos.

I can answer that one! It's not a Gorkanaut it's a Morkanaut so that attack is either the Kustom Mega-Blasta or Kustom Mega-Kannon, which are essentially powerful plasma attacks.

So essentially they are close to Plasma Guns, thus the giant glowy ball.

I do think that for infantry, it's impossible to make out whats happening with them. Their too small, and their constantly exploding in effects masking whats actually happening. Needs to be more like the older ones, where there were just sparks as opposed to everything exploding in blood and flashying everywhere.

I like that the ork vehicles and buildings and junk are clunky and shaking though.

I'm very worried about the launch pads on the truck, turning all orks into jump infantry for the initial assault seems really strong and worrying, hopefully it has a 20 second cooldown or something.

But man that giant mech, the gorkanaut was it? looks very cool for a super unit.

Hate. Hate. HATE. HATE HATE the animations. Hate the character designs, particularly what they've done to Gorgutz.

As he said, I do like the Morkanaut animations and the building animations.

Infantry animations are despicable and off-product. Except for the Weirdboy which is perfect. The Boyz don't look anything like tabletop or previous Dawn of War games, the art or anything else. The noise from the huge number of particle effects, silly close combat is very offputting.

This is honestly worse than Diablo 3's art design downgrade.

Close combat also seems very simplified compared to previous iterations. Chopping differentially, sync kills, using pistols, swarming, etc, which used to be the distinguishing feature of the original Dawn of War that set it apart from Starcraft. As a result, it doesn't even look like a game I would enjoy.

In this game it looks like they've gone two steps forward in making a cartoony and mechanically simplified close combat system than even Warcraft 3/Starcraft. The epileptic seizure inducing particle effects don't help. Are those splash attacks in close combat?

Guess I'll be dusting off Dawn of War 1, the only good Dawn of War game.

The particle effects on most of the bigger, more zany objects is fine. For instance if a Shokk Attack Gun was shown, you'd expect the holes into the warp to be all glowing and purple, with bits of lightning. The same goes with shoota's (although personally I think the flashes of light are a little overdone, but that's just me). It's the infantry's attacks that are the real issue. It's one thing for the Deffkopta's saw to have a glowing particle effect, but why do the orks swinging clubs, axes, and swords need those effects? That's the real issue. Again, it'd be one thing if these were force swords, shock clubs, and electro choppa's, but they aren't. It's boyz bein' boyz.

It's not about the "Flood of colors" Warhammer, despite it's GRIMDARK, has always been pretty vibrant in terms of factions and how they decorate themselves (especially if the old Warhammer 40k is anything to go by),as you even have said.

The only one's I keep seeing with the glowing particle effect is the Nobz (for infantry), which considering there is sparking off their axes I believe are in fact Electro Choppa's

Also man, I am so tired of people putting DoW1 on a freakin pedestal.