Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts Demo

Company of Heroes has been quite well received by gamers everywhere, thanks to the revolutionary gameplay mechanics, large number of strategic options and the impressive graphics engine. Now, an expansion pack has been released to provide you with additional content, an improved experience and two new campaigns to play through.

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts is a standalone expansion pack that aims to build on what was already there and offer you plenty of new content, while also fixing some issues and improving the overall experience as much as possible. Thus, beside the two new factions and their respective scenarios, you also get to handle a variety of new units and take advantage of the refined strategy mechanics.

Beside playing as the British 2nd Army in the fierce battle of Caen, the campaign mode also provides you with a reenactment of the “Market Garden” operation, in which you get to control the German Panzer Elite as they try to defend against the Allied airborne invasion. Naturally, these two campaigns are separated from each other, which means that you can fully experience the new factions without any distractions.

As before, the game mechanics are smooth and functional, especially when it comes to controlling your army on the battlefield and getting the most out of your troops. Hence, squads gain points after every kill, which can be spent into improving their defensive or offensive abilities. Some units can also be reinforced to contain more than the default number of men and you can improve their weapons as well.

Technically, the game received quite a few modifications, most of which can be observed in the graphics menu. DirectX 10 can now be used to render the scenes, which makes for much more realistic special effects, as well as high-quality terrain deformation and stunning weather effects. Moreover, different types of weather affect the battlefield in certain ways, which makes for a much more realistic experience.

In the end, despite the fact that the two campaigns could have been a bit longer, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts achieves its purpose and improves the series by quite a lot when it comes to gameplay, graphics quality and the actual strategy options available on the battlefield.