Others say...

"A Solid Warhammer Game"
I was a big fan of "Shadow of the Horned Rat" and "Dark Omen" and this game is very much in the same vein. It uses a combat engine similar to the Total War series of games, but as others have pointed out, it's a bit more simplistic. Like the previous games mentioned, the strategic element is quite simple as well, and is seperate from the combat portion. The ability to equip your heros with magical armor and weapons, as well as the ability to upgrade and outfit your troops is interresting and useful enough to justify the campaign mode.

The look of the game is very impressive, and the opening movie alone is worth owning the game for.

If you enjoyed the previous Warhammer Fantasy games mentioned above or enjoy Warhammer Fantasy in general, then you will probably enjoy this game too. If you are unfamilliar with Warhammer Fantasy, but loved the Total War series, be prepared that this game is not really the same sort of thing. It's a step up from the old Warcraft model of micromanaging individual units, and you don't have to mess with your economy and production while you fight, but it is not nearly as complex as the Total War series. It sits somewhere in-between...

"Great Graphics - Be Sure to Update"
Warhammer - Mark of Chaos involves thousands of soldiers in a fantasy world clashing against each other. Elves, Goblins, Skaven and Humans battle it out for supremacy of the known world.

Before you even start playing this game, make sure you UPDATE it. It took us five tries to even get this game installed - the install utility kept crashing. We have a very new machine, too. There are countless tales of the gameplay crashing. If you do a full update - which can take an hour or more - you have the best possible chance of actually playing this game bug-free.

The graphics are gorgeous. You do need a high end computer to take full advantage of them, but you were due for an upgrade anyway, right? The elegance of the elves, the gritty darkness of the goblins, everything shows up with great detail and an eye for the cultures involved. When you're involved in the battles you can zoom out for a general overlook of the terrain, or zoom in close to watch individual soldiers duke it out.

The game is all about large scale battles. You choose what units you're going to send out against the foe, and then the battle commences. Think in terms of massive samurai battles with gigantic forces sweeping down against each other.

Speaking of samurai battles, you also get the one-on-one hero conflict that samurai warriors were so fond of. This gives you a break from the massive battle for a while, focussing on just one particular person, and the way he moves and swings.

Like most games of this ilk, the single-player gameplay is really more of a training mission than anything else. There are two, reasonably long (each perhaps a weekend of playing) scripted missions that help you learn the strengths and weaknesses of the various units. This helps you hone your skills against the enemy AI which isn't awful, but of course isn't great either. Then head into the one-player skirmish to test out the other maps and to set up situations to test your less-strong points, to get those worked out.

Once you've got those basics down, it's time to take on the real challenge - other humans!

Online gameplay is where all games like this shine. You're now playing against real humans, with real skills, ones who will spot your weaknesses and take cold advantage of them.

If you're a fan of epic warfare, of the likes seen in the Lord of the Rings movie and the 300, then this is definitely a game to check out. Just make sure your system is tweaked and that you download all the updates before you take it on!

Recommended.

"Great Game, best I seen in a while"
This is a great game, true to the table top game universe while still being a great Real Time Strategy game. I enjoyed both the Chaos and good single player campaigns. The Online battles are the best part of the game, creating different armies and then battling players from all over the world. Be warned though, the game needs a really good graphics card, I upgraded to a PCI-E card with 512MB just so I could play this game and that card worked fine

"Looks good on outside, but unplayable. "
First, let me say that this game has one good point. That is, you can customize your army by changing the color, design of weapons, and features. All units are customizable and if you are a person that enjoys doing this, then you will be able to keep yourself occupied for a while. Initially the graphic are a little impressive, but the fluidity is lacking. Regardless of this, the game is unplayable due the bugs. First, upon loading the game, you will need a patch just to get it to run. However, getting the patch installed is a major pain as the autoinstaller doesn't work.
And IF you can get the game to run, you will have problems with the mouse pointer disappearing onscreen in the setup screen prior to battles. Howevever, alt+tab out and alt+tab back in resolves this. The point is, why? Why all this labor to just play?
The game play itself has a poor framerate, and the campaign put me to sleep.
Another company should have designed this game. THQ did a great job with Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War, and Creative Assembly's Total War series is quite excellent. If one of those companies designed this game, things might have been different.
Mark of Chaos is crap. Total crap, and a waste of money. If you want to buy a good battle game, I suggest something else. If you want a massive scale battle game, then you will need to stick with the Total War series. If you want a fantasy element in the wargame, then I have no suggestion for you. Maybe another fantasy battle game will come out in the future.

I am very unimpressed with Mark of Chaos. It looks good on the outside, but it's got nothing to offer. This game is the equivent of a car with a nicely painted body, but no engine. More time should have been spent on it, because it really could have been something special, but it was most likely rushed to release. I doubt there will ever be an expansion for this game, due to it's negative publicity.

For the same price, you can buy Company of Heroes AND Titan Quest. Both games have been marked down recently, and are excellent.

"BEWARE - What a ripoff!!!"
To say this game is a disappointment would be an understatement.
Nothing but technical problems (and no it's not my system, plenty of horsepower - well beyond the system requirements) as witnessed on the Mark Of Chaos Technical Support Forum. Namco released this game with so many bugs that they had to release two patches in the first month totaling nearly 600MB !
My main problem seemed simple enough. I was unable to load previously saved games from the program's Load Game screen. The games were being saved (found them buried 14 folders down in the My Documents folder!) to the hard drive so it's obviously a programming issue. After trying to find a solution with Namco over a month's time, they finally said there was nothing they could do about it. This response came after installing, uninstalling, clearing the registry, installing the 600Megs of patches over 10 times!!

The game actually installs fine and game play is smooth and fun. But like others have posted, the single player campaigns are seriously lacking in scenarios. But not being able to load previously saved games means you need to have about 24 hours of time to finish a campaign straight through. And even when you finish the campaigns simply end with your character on a map. No theatrics, not even a message saying the game is over. What's next? Going to heaven and finding out it's just a bunch of clouds and nothing else?

Beware to all those who are interested in purchasing this game. If you need any further warnings just browse the 25+ pages of technical support problems posted on the Mark of Chaos Forum.

What a waste of money! Do not give in to the temptation to give Namco your money to be a guinea pig for their poor quality of work and customer support.