I think it's also important to not discount the effect Starcraft 2 has - it just does so much, so well. Although it wasn't at DoW3's launch (though Relic may have got wind of it early), it is also now free to play the core game.

That's a hell of a thing to try and have to compete with. How can you sell an RTS at full-price when it offers less in every way than your main competitor? You need to bring something new and really compelling to the table.

I thought DoW3's focus would be on more casual players, essentially doing for RTS's what Heroes of the Storm did for MOBA's - distilling the essence, getting game times down, and removing barriers to entry. I think there's a really big market for that as the barrier to entry for PvP in SC2 is insane, it's less a learning curve and more a triskele to the throat!

Total Biscuit's SC2 mod is a really good example of how you can go in that direction - a game built with some of those design goals in-mind right from the start could do really well.

But that's not what they've done, so.. we'll just have to wait and see what they do next!