DanielD:
-Doctrine system is poor, no strategic choices at all. Probably my biggest gripe. Gone are the days of seeing a doctrine choice and adapting because guess what, 3 doctrines have the same ability and you cant even choose a path to unlock them. Its all done for you in case we're too nubbish to make a strategic choice like in COH1.
-Resource system lessens strategic importance in map strategy. Why rush a fuel if you get plenty of fuel from right outside your base?
-You can cap with an AT gun ffs. Remember the days of choosing to cap or fight? Another strategic choice gone.
-Without a fuel investment for upgrades axis has no strategic choice on how to spend fuel. You just tech freely. Another choice gone.
-Cold Tech is a gimmick that dumbs down flanking and agressiveness. It looks pretty but it dumbs down the pace of the game and makes early flanking near impossible on some maps.
-Shall i mention pay to win commanders? I choose to spend $5 every month for the new OP flavor of the month, now there's a strategic choice that Relic likes!
-You cant even choose to strategically soft retreat because units cant fire backwards anymore. Yet another downgrade from COH microing.
-Try to lay a german single anti infantry mine xD... Talk about stupid downgrade.
Sooo many strategic choices that made COH1 great are gone.
Yeah, some good points esp. regarding the less interesting/complex doctrine system and the lack of things to spend fuel on besides vehicles and teching. The other stuff I wont debate you on since it's mostly subjective ( I happen to enjoy the new capping dynamic, I think coldtech could be improved to be fun, etc etc). It seems like a lot of things were arbitrarily changed because the design guys didn't want to copy CoH 1.
I'm optimistic however because already it seems like every unit has its place in the game, whereas things like the .30cal and the american mortar, the M5, and the officer were all pretty bad choices most of the time. If they do continue to add units and doctrines its foreseeable that there will actually be more variety in CoH 2 strats then there ever were in CoH 1.