Thats funny, Givin's view is pretty much exactly the opposite of what I've seen so far. Now, I loved DoW (until the point where it became a kite-orgy, making the minimap look like some sort of twister was going on), and played the crap out of CoH.
Maybe I was expecting too much CoH with different looks but the beta so far is pretty much a handful of units that you have to micro, bigger scale tactics are gone.
In DoW you had massive battles (at least if you didn't play 1v1 where you just had a massive twister), with 5+ infantry units, some tanks etc. Thats 40k to me, big battles. In DoW2 you have like 3 units, 1 vehicle. Thats ok, it just feels more like playing Commandos than DoW. Actually thats all it comes down to. Place your suppression units right, time jumpunits on your opponents suppression units, try to get an anti vehicle weapon so you can 2shot his 500points tank etc.
Ground control is gone (you still need it to get resources, can't get cut off though), one of the best parts of CoH. Stances from DoW are gone. WTF? Whats the point? I think AI is gone too, no more units ducking for cover, melee units not entering melee because you decided to add one shit gun to a walker etc. Diverse techtrees are gone. It's only tiers now, options only vary from unit to unit. No longer "ok, he's tier2 and he's building a second commander, means he won't have tier2 tanks the next minuites". Its just, "ok hes tier2 now, and can build everything tier2". I don't like instapicking the commander and skills set to them either. Doctrine choices >>>>>>> commanders. More decisions to be made during the game, not before. Then the tiers seem weird. Tier3 Predator vs Tier3 Avatar? Hello, I want my Landraider back. Balance is still bad in general, spore mines and shotgun scouts, fun fun.
I can see the game being fun, and I've preordered it because I just want to see where things go. I also expect the campaign to be good (at least if they can change the AI before release). I just don't see CoH getting kicked off it's throne anytime soon, and definitly not by DoW2. I don't even see how DoW2 should be an improvement to DoW, except graphics and tyranids (and I expect zerg to be the better tyranids). DoW has more blood too!
CoH Gold is 29,99 on steam, get that if you haven't played it. Destructible terrain, slower than most RTS, tons of options but no useless stuff, best map control/resource dynamics, "experience" system with doctrine choices. Best RTS, ever. Nothing close, seriously. It has everything. It has been the same since release, I buy a new game, play it for a week or two then I'm back at CoH.
edit: Tarot, if you suck because you spend too much time building you might still own in DoW2, there simply is nothing to build