Alright, so I played the campaign and my overall conclusion is that the gameplay left me pretty content, but the atmosphere of it was largely ruined by other 'lacking' areas that needed much polish.
First of all, the Protoss review demonstration, the FIRST video that we've ever seen, set the bar for so many neat and good looking aspects of the game.
When Admiral Gaskerville (or whatever) talked, did you see how much effort was put into making his expressions realistic? He leaned forward, leaned back, furrowed his brow, grit his teeth and even pointed his finger at those hostile Protoss. The model animation was really impressive. Voice acting went along really well with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwqD138QHmQ
2:30 mark
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzvx5hsLcbI
5:35 mark - here is where you see the modeling animation done right
What's in SC2? Nothing, it's mostly just a bobbling head and lips synced to the lines. Matt horner reuses his animation every time you talk to him (he looks down a bit then snaps back to attention). This is an area that I'm highly disappointed with (although in the Char cinematics it was very well done).
Secondly, is the lack of transitions in the game's dialogue and the UI.
Notice how when the Admiral talks, the chat box phases in? It looks so smooth. When the Protoss shows up, his portrait box phases in on the RIGHT side of the screen. This effectively allows for better dialogue animation as well.
The release version of the game does NEITHER of these. Not only does the Terran portrait box just appear out of thin air (they couldn't even make it slide in?), when characters talk to each other there is always a pause at the end of each speech, before the next character shows up in the box to continue the discussion. This feels extremely disjointed and doesn't flow well. It's just hard to get into the feeling of the discussion when it's done so lazily. No appearance animations, talking bobbleheads with little or no expressions, and dialogue that doesn't run smoothly.
And Third, is just the voice work. Now this is highly opinionated of course, as many people may feel otherwise so it's more of a personal thing than an objective quality aspect (like the aforementioned issue). Zeratul sounds horrible compared to SC1. His voice actor probably isn't the problem here, I bet it's whoever the hell wrote his lines. Since when did he become so prophetic and pansy like? In SC1 he waxed poetic, but in a strong manner with good vocabulary. In SC2 it just sounds cheesy.
In another thread someone mentioned all the races in SC2 taking a hit to their badassery. I cannot stress how much I agree with this.
Zerg: Well this is just a complaint in general about the non memorable sounds, but I don't have much of a complaint about the Zerg in general. It's Kerrigan. I don't even want to remember how bad her voice sounds compared to Kerrigan in SC1. Her portrait animations were typical as mentioned earlier, and overall Kerrigan did not leave any impression of me, and if she did it was a bad one.
Terran: I'm just glad they got Clotworthy back because throughout the campaign I've preferred nearly every original voice to the new one.
EXCEPTION: The Firebat is the most badass thing I've heard in all the history of the SC universe.
The marines, they were badass in SC1. Their dialogue showed them as guys who loved to 'wax them critters'. In SC2 the acting is 'okay' but there's no badassery to it. Some parts really fit though, like when the huge Ultralisk was going to rape those marines and if you failed to save them they would say "oh god, game over man, game over."
The main character voice acting for the Terrans is good, I have no complaints. Tychus Raynor Warfield Valerian, these guys I am perfectly content with.
Protoss: Blizz must have forgotten how to filter and add effects to their voices because the Protoss voices might as well sound like they're crying compared to SC1. Selendis sounds like a total Biatch. That high templar guy in the Zeratul side missions sounds like a pansy as well. Just compared either of them to the HT in SC1.
Don't even get me started on the Hybrid's voice. Made me want to smash things.
The pre rendered cinematics are amazing quality though.
Conclusion: Mainly, my real complaint with this thread is the lack of polish. Why show us so much effort put into a demo, and set that bar, then make the main game fall way short of it? It's beyond me.
