I bought it but kind of wanted to play through the first one again first. Still waiting on my code. :(

I enjoyed it, although I'm not sure it will keep me playing the way the first one did.

The campaign is fun... nothing remarkable IMO, but a decent series of missions. Doesn't really add to the original game in any notable way in terms of mechanics or scenarios. The story is decent (beautiful cutscenes by Blur). The ending is... well... it's a post-Halo Reach Microsoft AAA game ending, if you take my meaning. I'd love to hear what you think if you do play both games back-to-back.

On the multiplayer side, I have my concerns. The original game offered 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 matches (with a few different game modes). I didn't like 1v1 or 2v2 at all, but I absolutely loved 3v3 deathmatch. Being a more "streamlined" RTS, Halo Wars' controller layout doesn't do much to allow multitasking. It basically turns into a race between players to "rush" with whatever units you want to rush with, and hope you can do it faster than your opponent. But in 3v3, the rock/paper/scissors dynamic suddenly kicks in and you get way more reacting, back and forth, and improvising. It's great.

So in the first Halo Wars, I put hundreds of hours into the 3v3 deathmatch playlist. I was totally excited for more of that in HW2. The problem is that there is no dedicated 3v3 Deathmatch playlist this time around. There isn't even a dedicated 3v3 playlist! There is a single playlist that features 2v2 AND 3v3, with a variety of game types. So there is no way for me to jump in and reliably get to play the mode I actually want to play. Luckily, there are Bots and private matches, so I can still play that way. But that became repetitive after just a few matches. Every game seems to go the exact same way every time.

So it's too early to say for sure, but my first reaction is that the multiplayer misses the mark for what I wanted from the game. YMMV, of course.