My problem isn't exactly that the mechanics are from Starcraft. It's that the mechanics are from 1998. Or more to the point the look of the battle, is from 1998. Adding weapon range would make it look more cool. But what I hope they could still do is adding more animation to the little guys. For ****s sake they are standing still and shooting. Or standing still and slashing with something. Little more lively animation would make it look like a real battle. I'm seeing some creative death animations in the videos but other than that, the fighting looks boring.
Weapons fire has very little visible effect on anything, terrain or units, except for the impact sprite.
Other major gripe I have are the air units. Floating still and shooting? As long as I have played RTS I have hated that. Though you are right in that chancing that in to something else would make the koreans rebel or something. Too bad.
The unit scale is cartoony. I could understand it in Starcraft. But in this day and age with this technology, you'd think the scale could be a bit more believeable.
I know Supreme Commander is the king now and I never had any delusions of Starcraft 2 getting anywhere near it. But Age of Empires 3 had more visually appealing fireworks that what I saw in those vids. No. I'm really not looking forward for this.
I can't say I agree. Not on all points...I do think the weapons animation and moving units while attacking and all of that is nice and I don't think we'll be getting that from SC2...C&C3 did that fairly well actually as did C&C Generals but many people seem to hate those games around here so I'm not sure what it will help with.
As for unit scale and range...I don't see those as a big deal. I really don't care if the Marine can fire 4 spaces or 6 spaces or whatever it is...some units like the Siege tank are firing from a long distance and others get right up close and personal. Cartoony scale is a stylistic thing and I'm sure they did it on purpose in the first one and in this one too. Scale is partly a technology thing and also a playability thing but the key is mashing that together in one style. Obviously they have a particular style they want to stick with.
Everyone has their own ideas...if I were making a RTS it'd be allot different than StarCraft is or C&C is and maybe that'd be for the better or for the worse...I don't know. But I do see why they are doing things they way they are doing things. Some changes would add nothing to the series and probably take away from it. Some other changes would be really neat but may not work out nicely for gameplay. For instance I've always wanted to see a fully destructible field of battle and we've gone nowhere on that. Probably for playability reasons...C&C2 had a partially destructible playing field and it ended up being annoying as a large missile or shell would put a divot in the terrain around your base and all that meant was that you couldn't put a building there anymore...wasn't all that great.
So everyone is entitled but I think some things have to make sense or have to fit the style established and there isn't a point in changing the style.
I'd be really interested to see what you would do if you could make your own RTS. What features would you have?