They teach really basic countering, but not really scouting. Scouting as it is used in multiplayer can’t really apply to a structured mission. The key to scouting is seeing what buildings your opponent has built and knowing what units this will lead to, so which units need countered. When you’re attacking a fortified position and your opponent has almost every building this isn’t a viable mechanic.

Slightly worried this might have posted twice, damn phone overlays.

They teach really basic countering, but not really scouting. Scouting as it is used in multiplayer can’t really apply to a structured mission. The key to scouting is seeing what buildings your opponent has built and knowing what units this will lead to, so which units need countered. When you’re attacking a fortified position and your opponent has almost every building this isn’t a viable mechanic (they do try this in the second ).

StarCraft 2’s multiplayer obviously has something going for it, but it’s pretty inaccessible to players who don’t like to micromanage to a competitive degree. I’d love to see them make a single-player game that trains us to do that well, explains the virtue of it to us, and teaches the value of mechanics like scouting and countering. Because SC2’s multiplayer actually has meaningful variety: if you’re playing well, you certainly don’t build the same base every time. And watching the pro leagues, I’m amazed at how differently every match plays out.

It’d be great to see Blizzard leverage that for single-player, and explain it to idiots like me. Rather than ignore it and go to enormous effort to build something that has little to do with it.

Half the missions that introduce units aren’t actually centred around that unit (firebats, mauraders, vultures, goliaths, wraiths, hellions, etc), they’re just a good choice in it. Also, on almost all missions you can forget the starring unit and still play it like a game of C&C if you like. It will just feel stupid, like how most other RTS campaigns feel naturally.

Actually, yes, that is the complaint. Forcing players to use a certain type of strategy can be just as bad as a lack of variety, in that you have to do it Their Way. There is something to be said for both your viewpoints, though.

And the stories are about comparable, too.

That doesn’t excuse the fact that almost the entire game played like what I would expected the first few introductory missions to play like.
SPOILERS

You spend most of the game “building” up raynor’s forces instead of moving the plot forward. If you look on wikipedia, a lot of stuff happened during SC1 and BW that was plot moving. SC2 = Raynor saves more citizens.