Go Get The Warhammer: Dawn of War II Beta

Those of you interested in Relic's next strategy game, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II--but not interested enough to pony up for the older Soulstorm so you could get into the multiplayer beta--are now in luck. The official Steam site posted a note that the beta is now free for everyone, as long as you have a Steam account. Just fire up the client and grab the beta as you'd get any game.

Pretty savvy move on THQ and Valve's part. Normally, you'd expect a preorder of the new game to open up the early-access incentive, but instead they wrung a few more sales out of an older game and will still rope in plenty of sales on the sequel. And now everyone can play the game anyway. So go play it.

For those of you who have already been in the beta or have just started playing it today, how does it strike you so far? I'm interested in the game, but then I also keep holding out hope that we'll see the first piece of Starcraft II this year. And I'm not sure I have room in my life for two space-themed real-time strategy games at once.