Dawn of War II multiplayer beta access.

If you're into RTS games, you should know about Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. If you're a fan of Games Workshop, especially the Warhammer 40k franchise, either you've played this or missed out on one of the best tabletop to video game translations ever to be based on a GW license.

Anyways, the multiplayer beta for Dawn of War II is out on Steam right now. But there's a catch. You must have purchased Dawn of War: SoulStorm (the final expansion for DoW). The good news is that you can buy SoulStorm for a whopping 75% off. At $7.50, it is simply a steal. Throw in the DoW Platinum Edition and you got the whole set.

Unfortunately, neither DoW, DoW II, nor Steam are Mac compatible, so you'll have to load Windows through BootCamp. I don't think you can use Crossover, either. DoW requires DirectX 9 and (I think) Crossover only emulates up to DirectX 8. So, it's Windows or bust.

I downloaded the beta just last night and haven't gotten a chance to play it yet. I'll post up my impressions after I get done purging the unclean.

"A good soldier obeys without question. A good officer commands without doubt."