User blog comment:Hawki/Nova Covert Ops, part 2 - Reflections/@comment-250398-20160824161552

I certainly agree this was a step up, part 1 had to shoulder the burden of having to set everything up in a short time. Like I said before trying to tell a story comparable to the other campaigns in 9 missions and then giving that sort in bits kneecaps it a bit.

Gameplaywise I agree it was a fairly fun experience, though I was a bit unsatisfied with the difficulty of brutal and some of the mastery achievements compared to part 1, especially the last mission. Really that's the only complaint, they're still managing to rehash the five possible RTS mission archetypes in interesting and innovative ways so I still consider it nice.

I like that Nova's gotten more proactive, but I think Reigel was the unspoken savior of this pack. While he doesn't have any particularly deep backstory yet his banter played well off Nova, I hope we see more of him. I'm a bit sad he showed up here and not in a main campaign because he'd be one of the characters I would look forward to talking to between missions. And I kind of like that he's just a guy, no big huge role connecting into the universe, just kind of a scientist who's good at his job.

Alarak was welcome, when the Tal'darim showed up I thought "jesus they're going to shoehorn in the protoss again just in WoL" but I was pleasantly surprised when they weaved them into the plot in a way that made sense. Ji'nara was also nice, though I can't help but irrationally dislike her for showing up in canon after I argued so hard that her fate was ambiguous after LotV.

I enjoyed the Davis reveal because it was a creative bait and switch for those super looking into it. They set Davis up as the stalwart defender of the Dominion and Magistrate Grayson as the Defenders sympathizing critic of Valerian. May have worked better if Grayson had any buildup aside from a news report and the Lockwell tweets, but again limitation of the game length. Maybe if they switched Horner for Grayson in the second mission it would have been a cooler reveal.

Still waiting to see if they expand on the character of Stone, they're obviously going to revisit the missing ghosts (even though the ambiguous state of Delta surviving the first mission may mean she gets death by not getting referenced, which is sad) but they seemed to be dropping some hints that he may be Johnny Raynor, and this is the one situation they could do it where I wouldn't completely hate it.

Evolution brings up my biggest problem that goes in with what you said about this being an unnecessary sequel; in my mind it's not a bad thing so long as the story just doesn't magically return to status quo, and everything that happened may as well have not happened. It was ok after LotV because that status quo was a new thing for the sector, but if the Defenders are defeated, Valerian reigns supreme and all is good and happy for the Dominion then we literally could have not had skipped these missions for all it would have mattered. So far SC has done a good job of having its major stories leave some sort of impact, which is why I was hoping Valerian would transition out of office by the end, or at least move into a more democratic position that doesn't paint him as a dictator (because I still find it hard to believe the Dominion people would still accept an absolute Emperor at peacetime when the Confederacy at least pretended to be democratic). I have hopes Emperor Valerian was added in the description to not spoil NCO but I may be being too optimistic there. I just want SOMETHING future games and books will have to include, some impact this story has on the greater SC mythos.

On the golden age, I assumed that it had already happened. But given they WON'T STATE THE DAMN YEAR NCO TAKES PLACE I guess we'll never know. Hopefully they do another lore QA this Blizzcon so I can harass them about it.

So yeah I agree step up from part 1, but the setup and surrounding lore makes me afraid for part 3. We'll have to see though, I thought WoL and LotV were both fantastic stories until the last act so it wouldn't be unprecedented. Already I like this story better then HotS, because while it had a theme and character introspection I feel not having those things is better to having them and handling it poorly. But I can't actually judge the game by its plot until we know the full story.