Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak review

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was clearly a game release that went unnoticed by me at first.
I havent seen a single trailer, announcement or test prior Janurary 2017.
Needless to say, I was curious about the game. Especially the new setting on the planet surface instead in open space was promising.

I have played all of the Homeworld games in the past and spent lots of time with them.
Is Deserts of Kharak able to fulfill my high expectations?
In short: no it isn't.

What this game does really good is creating the Homeworld feeling.
Despite the meanwhile more animatied cutscenes they kept this "sketchy" look. The sound and music is great and reminds very much on the original game. Even the way how transitions are done between the scenes is definitly "Homeworld".
Very early in the in the game you meet Rachel S'jet and instantly remember Homeworld 1 when you were told that the brain of a female named S'jet was directly linked with the Mothership because no computer was powerful enough to keep the ship running.

So whats wrong with a game that instantly manages to create a well known link to the old game and generally a good feeling?
Part of the problem could be that Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak is the prequel to the original game.
That is unfortunate because you know how the game starts and you also know how the game will end. It takes away the surprise... it takes away curiousity.
All you can do is to try to tell an interesting story between that.
But here the game also fails.
The story events are very predictable. Even when there was something like a plot-twist it was very predictable. I knew what would happen before it happened.
Deserts of Kharak really suffered from the fact that it is a sequeal and the fact that the story actually was known back then when the original game was released.
Nothing in the story missions could change that.

The graphics of the game are great and also the way how you command your units. It was easier than in the original game, most likely because the 3rd dimension is missing.
Generally I would say the game was WAY too easy.
I have to admit that Ive only played on normal difficulty. But even on normal difficulty I would expect from a strategy game that it is challenging enough for me to loose at least a few units in combat.
That simply didn't happen when I was playing the game until the very late game. I lost a few units only in the last 2 missions (and that mostly because I simply didn't care about resources anymore).
The game was too easy.
With a simple standard strategy you can get through the entire game without any problems.
1. You always try to be on high ground so you have longer fire range than the opponent.
2. First line of heavy units will take the incoming fire
3. Send line right behind the heavy units are rail guns with long range.
4. Both are flanked by a bunch of anti-aircraft units
5. Support units do the healing.
6. And your carrier either protects the harvesters or does airstrikes against the enemy lines.
Thats it. You can get through every mission with this strategy.
And with "every mission" I mean the very thin amount of missions.
I played through the entire game in one day. For a strategy game thats a joke.
There are only 13 missions. Not one of them is a challenge.
Other strategy games have 2-3 times more missions.
I wanted to try the Multiplayer... when I was on the map selection I decided against it.
There was only one map available for each group size. One map for 2 players, one for 4 players, one for 8.
I am not sure if I overlooked something but in terms of content this game feels incomplete, rushed and not really balanced.

It was great to have that Homeworld feeling again but that feeling did not last long enough to really satisfy me.
If the game would offer more content and had the need to use more than just one simple strategy then Deserts of Kharak were a good game.... but it lacks exactly these features.