Amazing and transcendent, but only gets 5* because of its originality.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Original, massive scale, fun to play, great sounds, great music, explosions.

Cons: 'Leaders' seem too childish, hard to manage forces, AI too easy

The Bottom Line: 
Buy if you like RTS. If you don't, you probably will not like it much because it takes quite a bit of time and concentration to play.

Author's Review
As someone who frequently plays strategy games, I was quite impressed with SC, though there are some things that could be improved. Of course, transcending other games of the 'genre' (though this pushes the meaning to an entire new level) gives it a bit more leeway in a rating; if it was not the first of it's series it would not be getting such a high rating from me.

First, I'd like to compile a list: The good, the (mildly) bad, and the disgusting.

The good:

Pushes the RTS platform to an entire new level

Not a rip off of any other game

Great graphics

Size of maps is huge, or can be smaller for less drawn out matches

Plenty of innovative units

Factions are interesting

Characters are somewhat lifelike

Campaigns draw you in

Beginning sequences are quite neat

Battles are amazing, tons of strategy involved here

Commander feature is unique

Tech system works quite well

Good orchestral music, sound effects are quite good (especially the artillery :D)

The (mildly) bad: Expansion can be difficult, there is a tendency to choke on resources.

Lags down even the best computers on huge maps; reasonably well done but could be optimized better. Some of the unit names are quite stupid (banger, snoop, etc.) It's the year 3800 story is a bit ridiculous.

Should have more cinematics in between missions, and I would have liked a longer campaign.

Game often lacks the 'war' feel: there's a childish feeling that one gets from the characters and the whole battlefield, a bit of graphic violence and aggression would really help this and enhance the game. Who cares about the stupid E10+ rating? It's a friggin' war game, for christ's sake.

AI is often too easy and sometimes uses very stupid tactics.

The disgusting:

None.

Anyhow, I do believe that this is a good step in the right direction for the field of strategy gaming, and hopefully it's successors will push the platform to an entire new level. Though indubitably somewhat flawed, this game pushes the meaning of a strategy game so far that it's deserving of a stellar rating, and hopefully will be remembered as one of the main games that led to a new kind of RTS. What will we see in the upcoming years? Well, most likely a historical version of this on a massive scale, more sci-fi games/modern combat games similar to this, or even a world war 2 rts. I can't entirely be sure, but hopefully they'll not only head in this direction but improve on it.

Lastly, I know that this game probably is not for everyone. Those who will enjoy it the most are those who desire strategy on a big scale, and those who don't have the patience or just like constant explosions will probably get bored, though there are plenty of those : )

If I could give a specific rating, it would be a 9.6/10. It wouldn't get nearly that if it weren't so innovative. It may be a bit difficult to get the hang of for many who do not typically play games of this genre, also. It was quite easy for me but compared to other games it could be considered much more difficult and time consuming, thus why I listed the difficulty level as being higher.