Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution - Wot?

Wot indeed. Warning, Ranty post ahead!

I recently had a few people ask me what I thought about this upcoming game from Relic on the back of their Open Beta invitation to anyone who's pre-ordered the game.

Dawn of War 2: Retribution is the next in a line of Real Time Strategy titles that Relic have created featuring squad based control (as opposed to the traditional single unit control method used in most other RTS titles.)

Unfortunately I'll not be participating in the beta because I'm as likely to buy DOW2:Retribution as I am to call up Warren Spector and tell him "Hey, I'm really glad you put universal ammo into Deus Ex 2. That was great work."
Let's not beat around the bush, my reasons for not pre-ordering are threefold...

Firstly, and I'm sure many of you are aware of this, there are 5 bloomin games and not just one! Since I couldn't possibly afford all 5 and without playing all of the campaigns it would be a bit silly to try and write an informative review (after all I'd want to at least recommend one of the versions, or at least complain that they're all the same!) I was wrong.

Secondly each title costs £29.99 - full price! Full Price! And I never, ever buy anything for full price being a bit of a cheapskate bargain hunter. So if you wanted all 5 flavours of the game (can you play any race in multiplayer? Not sure...) you're looking at £150 for the full set. That's more costly than a real W40k army in miniature form, and we all know how much that costs... Wrong again...

This lovely Space wolves battleforce can be yours for £52 for example. Not that I would ever collect these myself...never *ahem*

Finally, based on past performance I've never been completely satisfied with any relic game I've ever bought. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Dawn of War 2 but not as much as the original game. Plus I've always been frustrated by their pricing structure and the way they go about releasing new races to play. If you've brought all of their W40K games as soon as they've come out, boy you've spent a lot of cash there.

Of course I have no idea if Retribution would be worth it to any of you individually at the starting price. I'm assuming that pre-orders are going well (they are advertising on steam after all.) For me though I'll be waiting til these are reduced, or come in some kind of all-in-one pack for the same cost as each. I just can't believe that each game will be worth full price for me...