There were some people scratching their heads when Microsoft announced a Halo Real Time Strategy (RTS) game.  Very few people in the press thought fans of the Halo games would transition to an RTS.  Then people heard Microsoft had Ensemble Studios building the game and people felt maybe it would be alright.  From the initial sales clearly Halo Wars is a success and the game got good reviews as well.

I'm not a RTS buff but so far I'm enjoying the game.  I'm a little bit past the second act in the game and feel I'm still learning how to play.  Now RTS games are all about build bases and armies to capture points on a map.  I think Halo Wars has some good maps to play in the campaign with a wide variety of environments.  The clips of the game I saw mainly focused on an icy planet but so far I've been on two other planets as well.

The game has a nice story mix of everything you'd expect from a Halo game.  You have covenant forces looking for Forerunner technology and fighting between Human, Covenant and the Flood.  The story doesn't get int he way but has some really nice cut scenes.

Controlling a RTS with a game controller is not an easy task.  The game's two tutorials do a nice job of teaching a player how to build bases and units but kind of misses out on controlling individual units.  I never saw how to "paint" units and control just that group.  You can easily select all units or just local units which is how I tend to control groups of units. 

The campaign in Halo Wars feels a bit short but there is an offline AI mode and online mode as well.  This will expand the game's play time for most people that enjoy these games.  I happen to be impressed with this game and hope to spend a lot of time learning how to improve at this game.