Is Forged Alliance a Stand alone or is it an expansion where you install SC first and then install Forged Alliance?

If it is stand alone, a lot of what I am reading in reviews and such say that is the version to play. Does that mean I should just install Forged Allliance and forget SC (if FA is stand alone, if not that means I install SC first and then FA...right?)

It's standalone, yes. Unless you're intending to play the vanilla SC campaign, FA is pretty much the version to play because it simply has more options to tinker with.

Thanks. I noticed that the SC download was larger than the SC:FA download which confused me on it.

Good to know that I just need to run and install SC:FA.