Company of Heroes and Men of War are two completely different World War 2 RTS's. One I enjoy immensely, the other drives me to insane rages that cause me to smash my mouse into the table. I won't give away which one.

That plane was how my ego felt in Company of Heroes Online

In Company of Heroes you play as either a Wermacht or American commander in charge of building a base, and unlocking new units to either capture and hold the most victory points and/or destroy the enemies base. There is a single player campaign. Allow me to sidestep an actual description by saying this: playing the single player campaigns is a lot like playing any RTS campaign, only if the developer was yelling in your ear about how much of a moron you are, and occasionally smashing you in the back of the head with a bat. Except that would be more enjoyable, mostly because you would lose upper brain function as this happens. I believe that would make you better at the game.

An example of a working strategy in CoH

Men of War has you take control of individual soldiers on the Russian, German, and American sides in WW2. You have to pay attention to you units health, inventory, and ammo as they move in their mission. Units don't mysteriously get reinforced. The limited number of soldiers you have is all you get that missions (with a few exceptions). The missions are hard, but each one is a sandbox. You can accomplish most missions any way you like. If you alert enemies in stealth missions, instead of game over you instead have to shoot it out and try to survive. MoW's multiplayer is similiar to CoH's, except no base building, and many more game modes. There are co-op campaign missions, capture points, a combat mode where you fight till you run out of resources or the time runs down, frontline where each side takes turns defending and attacking, etc.

Men of War's multiplayer gives you the toys you would expect from WW2, and some you don't

I have watched machine guns fire right at rifle squads in CoH. The Rifle men looked at each other, shrug, and when one of them mysteriously decided to die, their commander had them run away unscathed back to their base so one of them could split into two new guys to make up for their losses. Wonderful.

In MoW I have seen the enemy command a Machine gun that held a point for half the game. It died when one of my infantry snuck behind a wall near it, and threw a grenade into the sandbag defenses the MG was using. The crew was killed and I captured the point.

My point is Men of War is trying to simulate what WW2 felt like, Company of Heroes is an abstract RTS. Sorry it takes this long to reach this point, but it took me almost a year. I thought both games were trying to capture what WW2 combat was like. It took a game of CoH where enemy rifle men charged my MG motorcycle and engineers, then killed both of them without a scratch. That's when I saw that these Riflemen have nothing in common with real riflemen, and more with Knights in Chess; they had just jumped my pawns and a rook.

That Knight looks a lot like a Rifle Squad, and that Queen is sort of a Panzer IV

Men of War doesn't mess around with abstract gameplay. If a bullet hits a soldier, he is injured or dies. Nearby explosions don't "pin" them down, it will often cause them to die from the blast wave.

I did a very poor job of describing both games. That has more to do with me being broken. CoH has broken me down, beaten me, and called me stupid. I play the game and have no understanding of why bullets have a hard time killing infantry they hit, and why the paratroopers look human, but act more like Space Marines.

Paratroopers in CoHO

Here is the best description of what sets these games apart. Men of War has a random name generator. Every single soldier has a name. From the sniper you hid in the cathedral, to the tankman who barely survived the destruction of his Sherman; they all have names. There is something intimate and personal in that. I feel bad when a squad, which I sent to capture a point, get ambushed. I panic when I see a tank heading to a point where I left only a few riflemen. I can't press a magical button to have them run faster than a jeep. They will die, and I have to deal with that.

"Run you sons of bitches! RUN!"

Company of Heroes is a better game than Men of War, but so is Chess. I like MoW better.