
I've never played AOE2 multiplayer but you'll get tons of whiners on this game because they don't really understand the mechanics. Also this game is probably less historically accurate than AOE2, if you like that then the fact that the germans get way more powerful than the russians or americans will constantly bug you. You can get medals for going above and beyond, these are rarely very difficult however. You can experiment but not even the toughest difficulty will provide a challenge once you know your basics. The strategy comes from how you manage that. Although somewhat simpler in terms opf winning the scenario, 90% of missions in the original campaign you just move forward and kill the non-respawning enemy units to win. The campaigns provided here and in the base game may be comparable to AOE2s campaign.

If you want a really good single player campaign try Warhammer 40k2.

First question, No, don't buy this game for single player.
