CoH1 didn't really fared any better...
Its original campaign was basically Call of Duty 2, but from birds view.
RTS campaigns aren't really deep you know and WW2 campaigns are all about tropes.
If anything, CoH1 campaign was way too heroic and CoH2 one actually have shown some desperation on soviet side, which was actually a thing.
I already once wrote that just taking Relic's real history, the game would be significantly exciting. And a great example: Mission 4 Mtsensk. When a handful of conscripts defend against the Germans in vain, then they are absent, they defend themselves together with the Guard and counter attacks together with the T-34.
Take the real story: When the Orejel - Mtsens highway was protected by more than 6,000 airborne troops who were transported with guns, mortars, eight T-37, DShK, and trucks by air. Some of the paratroopers landed under AA and Artillery fire. The paratroopers held their positions until the evening when tanks of the 4th tank brigade came to their aid, after which they jointly counterattack.
And we see that in the game the mission as a whole repeats real events, but it makes it extremely boring and not reliable. Either the money was not praised or simply laziness or bias. But make the animation of the plane, how the plane lands on the airfield, the paratroopers who leave the planes, the tanks that unhook from the planes. It's just epic and exciting.
The Mtsensk mission could be continued with the "Birth of Ace" mission, in which the best Soviet and Anti-Hitler coalition tank Ace was born further in the Mtsensk battles, its history is extremely exciting.
Another problem is that Relic was trying to embrace the immensity. They will focus on just one of the stages: the beginning of the war with the battle of Moscow or the Battle of Stalingrad with the Italian and Romanian troops, etc. In the single player campaign, the plot turned out to be very ragged and jumps from event to event.
And the following DLC could be dedicated to other events of the Eastern Front, and even with the possibility of a new Soviet faction, because there are enough unimportant units for the new faction.
The Eastern Front is a whole treasure trove of stories and events from which you could make a great game and an addition to it on which you could make money, but Relic did it so awkwardly, so badly as if this was their first project and they did not care about this game.