History YMMV / StarcraftIIWingsofLiberty

* MemeticMutation: "Bros before hoes" and the reverse has been used to refer to siding with Tosh or Nova at the end of their mission chain. It also pops up due to the campaign ending where [[spoiler:Raynor shoots Tychus to protect Kerrigan from him]].

** '''In Utter Darkness'''. You must kill a certain number of enemies to win, and have bonus objectives that require defending a key building for ''25'' minutes. Not ''too'' bad on Normal, but the DifficultySpike is more noticeable in this mission on Hard and Brutal; not only are your enemies much stronger as you would expect, but the number of kills for the main objective increases, effectively making the mission last longer. There's a gold expansion in the north-west that helps boost your income, but holding it until it's mined out can be a ''lot'' of busy work plus you need to reposition the observer parked east of it or the expansion [[GuideDangIt will be attacked by the second attack wave.]] The developers even seem somewhat aware of its difficulty: it's the only mission where all three Achievements for it can be earned playing on Normal difficulty, every other mission has an Achievement that can only be eared on Hard.

** Special mention goes to '''Engine of Destruction''' which really pushes your limits (especially on higher difficulty) as to how fast you can manage up your base-building to have a large enough army that can protect/repair the Odin during its rampage around the map. The Odin breaking into the second and third Dominion bases are the worst parts as it requires the Odin to walk up entrance ramps with no vision of the base's high ground to hit the enemies dealing loads of damage to it. Thus, you ''really'' have to babysit the Odin at these entrance points with the small army you managed to build up, and provide high ground vision for it with your Wraiths and such, just to make sure that it doesn't blindly walk up the ramps and take loads of damage before it actually starts to attack back. The opening micro section can also catch people off-guard at how surprisingly difficult it is. You only get 5 Marines and 2 Medics to start with as a small escort force to get Tychus to the Odin. You can't even control Tychus, so you have to watch over him and help him kill all the enemies with ''just'' your 5 Marines. However, it's quite common to not have enough firepower, or Tychus runs ahead and takes all the fire, which results in Tychus dying. It's even worse if you don't have the Marine upgrades and the better healing upgrade on Medics.

** Outside their 3-mission {{Filler Arc}}s, Tosh and Hanson serve no real purpose to the overall story. Even in the following sequels, they remain complete no-shows with the exception of a brief Tosh [[TheCameo cameo]] in ''Heart of the Swarm'' if you chose to keep him alive. This is intentional because depending on the player's actions, the two may leave the ''Hyperion'' after their mission chains, so the developers didn't want to design missions and story around characters that may no longer be present. But surely something could have been done with them in the earlier missions when the player is unable to complete their chains yet.

** Egon Stetmann didn't have much going for him outside of "Belly of the Beast." Mainly because his role as the researcher of the crew overlapped with Hanson, which she was given most of the dialogue in the Hyperion lab while Stetmann just remained in the background completely silent. It says a lot that people remember him more for his drugged up Terrazine role in ''VideoGame/StarcraftIICoopMode'' compared to what he was previously.

** The Tal'darim are presented as fanatics attacking Raynor the moment he sets foot on their world. The game glosses over the fact, however, that Raynor is [[HumansAreBastards invading their colony worlds to steal artifacts of their faith, often desecrating sacred ground to do so]], and sells those artifacts for money. [[spoiler:Turns out the relics combine into a valuable PhlebotinumBomb, but Raynor doesn't know at the time; he's initially OnlyInItForTheMoney to fund his Raiders.]]

* TierInducedScrappy:
** The Wraith in the campaign has a steep cost of 150/150 minerals and gas respectively, but has lackluster performance for its intended role of countering armored air units. Their air-to-ground laser is also very weak. The Viking (costs 150/75) has much better air-to-air missiles and doesn't require a Tech Lab to produce, while the Banshee (costs 150/100) has superior air-to-ground missiles. Their main redeeming quality is their CloakingDevice, so they can ''theoretically'' tag along with Banshees for anti-air support. They're also the only substitute for the Viking when it comes to air to air combat if one wants [[spoiler:Ariel Hanson to stick around for as long as possible]].
** The Predator is a beginner's trap on the ''Zerg Research'' tree, supposedly offering anti-infantry support. However, their cost is an iffy 100/100, and their niche role can be handled fine with Hellions &/or Firebats, and Perdition Turrets if you opted to research them.
** The Diamondback is supposedly handy when you need to fire at targets while on the move, but they also cost a hefty 150/150 and their anti-armor role can be replaced Siege Tanks (if unlocked), even on their mission where they're introduced. Also, since the missions in this campaign generally revolve around either base raiding or base defense, firing on the move is something you'll rarely ever be doing.

** In "Welcome to the Jungle," you can break the AI by swiftly and continuously touching and letting go of the alters during SCV gas canister harvesting. Doing so breaks the enemy AI from sending out its Protoss attacks that are meant to stop the player from gathering the gas canisters. Thus, making it easy to cheese the mission by grabbing many gas canisters at once while breaking the the AI by using the "touch and let go" trick.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7dg9g5hoTs This 2008 video]] and its derivatives splice the Marine suit construction sequence from the teaser with the mundane outer workings of the barracks before showing the Marine being rapidly slaughtered by zerg. Funny in its execution, but come retail release, it turns out [[spoiler:Tychus, the Marine from the cutscene, ''does'' get killed, except by Raynor's hands]].

* HarsherInHindsight: Tosh at the end of "Breakout" dismisses the notion that overthrowing Mengsk would do any good stating there would be a "new Mengsk." [[spoiler: His remark likely hits closer than he imagined by the Nova Covert Ops when the Defenders of Man attempt to overthrow Valerian, and they use the same trick Mengsk did to bring down the Confederacy by using Psi-emitters to cause Zerg invasions. And the person leading them happens to be a Mengsk loyalist]].

** A common interpretation of [[spoiler:Tychus]]' death is that it was SuicideByCop. He has plenty of time to [[spoiler:shoot Kerrigan]] before anyone could react, but instead he very purposefully waits, explains what's going on, and waits for several seconds before making his move, giving [[spoiler:Raynor]] plenty of time to stop him. It's clear from his words and face that [[spoiler:Tychus]] doesn't ''want'' to do this, so perhaps in his final moments he decided to reveal his deception and die at the hands of [[spoiler:his old friend]], choosing to go out on his own terms.

** A common interpretation of [[spoiler:Tychus]]' death is that it was SuicideByCop. He has plenty of time to [[spoiler:shoot Kerrigan]] before anyone could react, but instead he very purposefully waits, explains what's going on, and trains his gun at his target for several seconds before pulling the trigger, giving [[spoiler:Raynor]] plenty of time to prepare to block his shot. It's clear from his words and face that [[spoiler:Tychus]] doesn't ''want'' to do this, so perhaps in his final moments he decided to reveal his deception and die at the hands of [[spoiler:his old friend]], choosing to go out on his own terms.

* HeartwarmingInHindsight: The early artifact missions feature a UNN feature about Kerrigan having a human part and a Terran alliance being possible. [[spoiler:Cue the second part where she both regains her human heart and allies with Valerian and Raynor to take down Menngsk, with the alliance later extending to the Protoss and then passed on to Zagara.]]

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Laser Drill from "The Dig" is this. Like it's name suggests, it's a massive stationary drill-like weapon that fires a giant laser beam at whatever it's targeting. In the mission, it's used to open up the door of a Tal'darim temple in order to steal away one of the Artifact fragements. However, the player is also able to operate it manually to fire upon any enemy unit or structure. Even melting high-health units and structures within seconds. Why is it a BigLippedAlligatorMoment? Because it's the only time the Laser Drill ever appears. A weapon this powerful would surely be useful in any battle throughout the ''Starcraft II'' story campaigns, and yet no one seems to realize just how powerful this one-off drill actually is.

*** The Hive Mind Emulator can turn the [[ThatOneLevel dreaded air-version of the final mission]] of the campaign into an easy breeze by building enough of the structure around your base in order to take control of every Mutalisk and Brood Lord that the enemy sends towards ya - Brood Lords in particular trivialize Kerrigan as she would rather use Razor Swarm on the Broodlings rather than on the other units attacking her. The most game-breaking aspect of the Hive Mind Emulator, however, is that controlled units cost Control but ''not'' Supply, and it ignores the 200 Control cap. Feel free to mind control as many powerful Zerg units as you want, while your ability to field more Terran units is completely unaffected.

** "Maw of the Void," which is a map that offers very little replay value after beating it the first time around with mass Battlecruisers. It becomes quite clear soon after that there is little that can endure the Rip-Field Generators besides Thors or Hercules Dropships. This can result in the same old stale experience every time this level comes around during a ''Wings of Liberty'' play-through. If you didn't opt for Regenerative Biosteel, then it's even more of drag since health regeneration helps blunt the damage.

** The Wraith in the campaign has a steep cost of 150/150 minerals and gas respectively, but has lackluster performance for its intended role of countering armored air units. Their air-to-ground laser is also very weak. The Viking (costs 150/75) has much better air-to-air missiles, while the Banshee (costs 150/100) has superior air-to-ground missiles. Their main redeeming quality is their CloakingDevice, so they can ''theoretically'' tag along with Banshees for anti-air support.

%%* Crazy Awesome: Tychus Findlay and Gabriel Tosh, [[CatchPhrase brother]].
* CriticalResearchFailure: Some detractors can't help but wonder if the game developers forgot that the Dominion's homeworld of Korhal was portrayed as a [[SingleBiomePlanet desert planet]] in ''Brood War'' as it's now suddenly a [[Franchise/StarWars Coruscant]]-like CityPlanet in ''Starcraft II''.

** Just looking at [[Wiki/TVTropes This Wiki]] shows how popular General Warfield is, even though his one appearance in the story essentially amounts to [[spoiler:[[ButtMonkey getting his ass]] [[TheWorfEffect kicked]], although in an admittedly stylish way]].

* HarsherInHindsight: Tosh at the end of "Breakout" dismisses the notion that overthrowing Mengsk would do any good stating there would be a "new Mengsk." [[spoiler: His remark likely hits closer than he imagined by the Nova Covert Ops when the Defenders of Man attempt to overthrow Valerian, and they use the same trick Mengsk did to bring down the Confederacy by using Psi-emitters to cause Zerg invasions.]]

* UncannyValley:
** Mira Han. That larger red right eye of her's alone makes her into NightmareFuel, in spite of her [[DeadpanSnarker amusing personality]].
** Portraits in conversations are advanced enough to look angry, sad, etc. However, they have an annoying tendency to "reset" to the default face for just a second after they finish their lines, leading to it looking like a bunch of robots simulating emotion.

** Is the Jackson's Revenge really a one-of-a-kind Battlecruiser or is an aftermarket specification with a fable as a pirate Battlecruiser to increase its mystique? The ability to rehire them after losing a Jackson in one mission and have a mirror match between rival Jacksons might make one wonder if this is the case and Jackson's Revenge is a schematic with a legend behind it.

*** One of the Terran upgrades gives all units with energy +100 max energy and +100 starting energy. Battlecruisers now spawn with Yamato Cannon fully charged, at max energy can fire two blasts without waiting, Banshees and Wraiths can go on cloaking missions right away, and Medics, Medivacs & Science Vessels can heal troops & vehicles for extended periods right out the door.\\

* AssPull: A portion of the fanbase finds the Dominion's return to power as the ultimate ruler of the Terrans to be this as it [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief doesn't line up]] with the horrible state that the UED and Kerrigan's Swarm left them in by the end of ''Brood War''. The justification is that a 4 year TimeSkip provided enough off-screen rebuilding to allow the Dominion to retain their power. However, the fact that no one during that time took advantage of the Dominion's weakened state to step in and take over as the new Terran rulers is quite difficult to buy into. Not to mention that Kerrigan would never have allowed Arcturus Mengsk, someone who she absolutely despises, to rise back up to power as there's pretty much nothing stopping her from just sending her Zerg at the Dominion the moment she notices that he's trying to rebuild.

* AssPull:
** A portion of the fanbase finds the Dominion's return to power as the ultimate ruler of the Terrans to be this as it [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief doesn't line up]] with the horrible state that the UED and Kerrigan's Swarm left them in by the end of ''Brood War''. The justification is that a 4 year TimeSkip provided enough off-screen rebuilding to allow the Dominion to retain their power. However, the fact that no one during that time took advantage of the Dominion's weakened state to step in and take over as the new Terran rulers is quite difficult to buy into. Not to mention that Kerrigan would never have allowed Arcturus Mengsk, someone who she absolutely despises, to rise back up to power as there's pretty much nothing stopping her from just sending her Zerg at the Dominion the moment she notices that he's trying to rebuild.

* AssPull: A portion of the fanbase finds the Dominion's return to power as the ultimate ruler of the Terrans to be this as it [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief doesn't line up]] with the horrible state that the UED and Kerrigan's Swarm left them in by the end of ''Brood War''. The justification is that a 4 year TimeSkip provided enough off-screen rebuilding to allow the Dominion to retain their power. However, the fact that no one during that time took advantage of the Dominion's weakened state to step in and take over as the new Terran rulers is quite difficult to buy into. Not to mention that Kerrigan would never have allowed Arcturus Mengsk, someone who she absolutely despises, to rise back up to power as there's pretty much nothing stopping her from just sending her Zerg at the Dominion the moment she notices that he's trying to rebuild.

* FoeYay: Between Tosh and Nova. According to the graphic novels, she and Tosh shared their first kiss with each other, and both of them enjoyed it. In ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'', Tosh has slid down the cynicism side of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism while Nova completed her Ghost training and was resocialized.

** The Tal'darim are presented as fanatics attacking Raynor the moment he sets foot on their world. The game glosses over the fact, however, that Raynor is [[HumansAreBastards invading their colony worlds to steal artifacts of their faith, often desecrating sacred ground to do so]], and [[MoralDissonance sells those artifacts for money]]. [[spoiler:Turns out the relics combine into a valuable PhlebotinumBomb, but Raynor doesn't know at the time; he's initially OnlyInItForTheMoney to fund his Raiders.]]

** The Diamondback is supposedly handy when you need to fire at targets while on the move, but they also cost a hefty 150/150 and their anti-armor role can be replaced Siege Tanks (if unlocked), even on their mission where they're introduced.