After shooting through scores of Covenant and Flood soldiers in three Halo first-person shooters, the United Nations Space Command's story rewinds a few decades in Halo Wars. The game grants you command of both the human UNSC forces and their archenemy, the theocratic alliance of the Covenant. Halo Wars offers quality cinematic presentation and a simple control scheme that makes the game easy to pick up and play, but the limited amount of units, short campaign, and dearth of multiplayer modes make it ultimately feel stripped. Halo Wars is a fun playthrough for casual real-time strategy and Halo fans, but there's not enough depth to win over hardcore strategy buffs.

Superb selection of UNSC and Covenant forces
Easy to play once you grasp the controls
Engaging storyline and cutscenes
Good mission variety through campaign mode.

Covenant not playable in campaign mode, Flood not playable at all
Small unit counts and map limit the scale of battles
Very few multiplayer options.