Starcraft 2, it's a clone made by different people that copies all the original stuff from SC without any of the magic.

I think e-sports fans would disagree... Especially considering the proliferation of international tournaments and the incredible surge in foreigner interest.

This disagrees with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJn8DVr0rzo

Ha - gotcha xD. Linked to a match less than a minute earlier... A bit covertly, though ;P.

Well yes, there's Dawn of War which plays better and ... You know ... Actually is within the setting that StarCraft was supposed to be :-P

Not sure if serious, for both parts.
Heh, didn't notice the link at first. ;)

Honestly, I liked SC2 well enough before they added the "2." There's nothing particularly compelling about it other than the Tournament features which they botched by taking away the LAN play option.

What you have would have been compelling a decade earlier, but honestly, there's much better RTS games that have been released in the mean time and I didn't see anything about it which really warranted more than an hour or two of playtime.

Well it does play better. Not in competitive multiplayer, that is for sure, but I don't give a rat's ass about that - DoW games are aimed at actual feeling of battle and war. They don't have two dudes shooting at each other until one of them explodes, they've got units crossing swords, jumptroops firing as they decend from above (well this bit applies a bit more to the second one,) demons cutting each other's heads off. StarCraft's brilliant as an e-football, and that's good, we need those. I just never much cared about football, nor have I ever cared about balance. I have always cared about atmosphere and DoW games have loads of that. DoW's the game with balls of steel. StarCraft's the wobbly ball you can kick around and use to have fun with your friend :-P (just for the record, DoW was the only game I have ever played online competitively, and I have enjoyed it for what it was. I never cared for StarCraft competitive multiplayer at all. But I do realize I'm in the minority here.)

As for the 'supposed to be' bit - come on, Blizzard has lost their rights to warhammer and so they've made a similar universe. Do you seriously think they wouldn't have rather made a WH40k game, when they ... you know ... Included Tyrranids, Eldars and Space Marines anyway?

More or less. There's tons of other RTS games made in the last decade, even before SC2 that are more fun. I loved Warzone 2100 and Demigod. What's more as silly as the C&C3 games were, they were a much more satisfying play than SC2. SC2 is that rare game that actually makes the previous game less fun. Which bothers me because I used to love SC. Or perhaps it was the constant balancing and rebalancing to make the competitive play more balanced.

FWIW, I think the TA clones are much better. If I want to play an SC knockoff, I'm probably better of not playing it and going with a WC clone.

You can't argue with facts, though - it IS the biggest competitive e-sport game of all time. That's not something that simply HAPPENS without compelling reasons. It is fun to watch, it is properly constructed to offer a challenge for amateurs and veterans alike... It is the ultimate arena for nerd-gladiators around the world. Speaking of it in superlatives is merely stating facts.

Yeah, it's an e-football.

The compelling reason is that it's the sequel to SC. And Blizzard took the previous decade of adjustments and balances from SC when they designed the new version.

The fact that they had an established player base and gave them the same thing again, does not make it a compelling product. It makes it a product where the developer was lazy and lacking in ambition.

And no, it's not facts you're using so much as rationalizations. The game would have been significant had it been released 5 or 6 years earlier. But as it stands, it's pretty much just a case of Blizzard trying to continue milking the cow.

EDIT: You of all people ought to know better than appealing to popularity.

I'm all open for Starcraft clones, if it means the single-player has several different campaigns with different factions/races that play wildly differently, yet the balance is ok. And a thrilling story is the icing on the cake.

Age of Empires and Command & Conquer (or Total Annihilation for that matter) are not Starcraft clones, because they fail especially the first requirement for one. The different factions play more or less the same, only some changes in some units etc.

Warcraft 3 was kinda, but I disliked the game for other reasons. Warcraft 1-2 are not SC clones because in them the humans and orcs play almost identically, some units are a bit different.

I've yet to install and play Dawn of War, no idea if it fits the bill. I recall reading earlier though that you can only play the human part in it? Or maybe it was just in the base game.

I'll look into Starcraft 2 again when the campaigns for other races become available. I've only played the demo so far, it didn't yet grap my nuts. I am not interested in multiplayer, only single-player.

I was actually going to use a term "Starcraft-lookalike" or something, so that games that have appeared before SC count too. Like WarWind 1-2. But I decided to stay with the "clone"-term.
Make no mistake, I quite loved e.g. Age of Empires 1-2, rating them even higher than SC. But I guess I liked them for a bit different reasons than SC.