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In Chaos Rising, the planet Aurelia, frozen over and lost for thousands of years to the Warp, suddenly returns and brings with it a load of trouble. From the Warp also emerges the Chaos Space Marines, ready to establish their influence and increase their dark powers. Fortunately, there's no force in the galaxy better prepared to meet this threat than the Imperial Space Marines, who have a personal stake in seeing their traitorous one time brothers in arms put down. During the course of the new campaign, players fight on the frozen wastes of Aurelia, make their way through the corridors of a massive derelict space hulk, and revisit worlds like Calderis and Meridian. Of the new areas, the planet Aurelia is the most impressive since its landscape shifts as it gets reshaped by Warp powers. Fans of the Warhammer 40k universe may appreciate stomping around in a space hulk, but there are only two missions aboard the craft, one being a timed linear rush through its corridors.

Players can import their characters from the Dawn of War II campaign into Rise of Chaos, which has the major benefit of bringing in all the powerful gear, but players also have the option to create new characters that start at level 19. The level cap is raised to 30 and powerful new abilities are added to each character. Players also have a one-time chance to completely reallocate the skill points of their characters, which is a great way to take advantage of some of the new skills immediately. Lastly, a new character joins the ranks: Jonah Orion, a Librarian that harnesses the powers of the Warp to aid allies and debuff or fight enemies. Equipping tomes can add more power or hone existing ones to a more devastating effect. Although Jonah is a powerful unit, balancing between his combat and support abilities proved to be one of the biggest challenges for us.

The campaign takes place a year after the previous story's conclusion and includes a number of major modifications. For starters, now that the forces of Chaos have entered the mix, characters are vulnerable to the corruption. Turning evil is a choice that players can make and it impacts gameplay on a number of different levels, from the kinds of powers characters can access to the type of gear they can equip. Chaos powers add an evil twist to existing abilities, some with devastating effects, so it's very tempting to go bad. The level of corruption a player attains will also determine the campaign's ending. Players are presented with the choice of corruption at different points during the game. Choices can be basic, like preserving or destroying Angel Forge's gate on Meridian, or more difficult like getting through a mission without killing any guards. Characters also gain corruption if they are left behind on certain missions and if optional missions are skipped, increasing their distrust for your authority. For the most part, players have to go a little out of their way to remain pure, but purity includes its own powerful bonuses and the ability to equip holy wargear. Fortunately, the game has room for some indiscretions. If players wants to turn back from being evil, they can perform redeeming tasks and equip redeeming wargear. The gear usually has some sort of flaw, like increasing the damage taken, to show penance.

Loot drops are more plentiful this time around and trading it in for experience will cut through the levels fast, but we still dislike how random some of it can be. For example, we were forced to stick with some of the equipment imported from the previous campaign all through Chaos Rising because no wearable upgraded version ever dropped for us. This is especially true of terminator armor equipment. However, we love having the powerful Chaotic wargear, which provides a lot of temptation to turn over to the dark side. Wearing the gear in itself adds to a character's corruption level. In some cases, this can be balanced out with redeeming items, but corruption breeds corruption. If your squad leaders start to distrust the Force Commander, they gain corruption whenever they're brought into a mission.

The Chaos Rising campaign sheds a lot of the problems from the previous game, like unskippable movies that precede optional missions. It also does away with the repetitious boss kill and defend missions, instead going with a small handful of optional side quests that relate to events in the campaign. Although this significantly improves the game's pacing, the trade-off is that the campaign comes off feeling very short and straightforward. There's no sense of risk here because all the optional missions can be completed in plenty of time. Otherwise, the campaign is very good. The Chaos Space Marines are tough. They employ demonized versions of Space Marine units like Dreadnaughts and throw them at the player, coupled with actual demons. Without spoiling the story too much, there's a subplot that makes no sense to us, but that's really the game's least concerning aspect. Although the game and its features are impressive, our enjoyment was hampered by a some major bugs. Squads would often get stuck in the environment or freeze in place, forcing us to continue the game without them. It gets really frustrating to carefully pick out your squads and have one taken out of play for no good reason. We can imagine the problem would have been worse in cooperative mode because players would be losing out on half their squads. In one mission, the player is given two tanks to soften up the enemy before the drop pods arrive. This proved difficult for us to manage because they had an annoying tendency to get turned around and direct its rear armor toward the enemy, giving them bonus damage. The most frustrating experience was aboard the space hulk where a mission item did not drop until the fourth time we played through it.

On the brighter (or darker, depending on perspective) side, Chaos makes for a formidable faction in multiplayer, arguably the best part of the Dawn of War II experience. The Chaos faction can be played in regular Dawn of War II multiplayer games, but you have to own the expansion to have access to it. Although Chaos bears some similarities to the Space Marines due to their origins, there are substantial differences to help it stand out - particularly the ability to summon demons. Although you don't require the expansion to get the Chaos Sorcerer hero for Last Stand mode, it's worth mentioning that it's also a fun character to play.

The Chaos Rising experience is pretty short but the corruption element makes replaying the campaign worthwhile. We suggest waiting for a patch to work out some of the frustrating bugs, but if all you're interested in is multiplayer, then this expansion is well worth owning right away. Despite the bugs (and we're not just talking Tyranids), we enjoyed combating the forces of Chaos.