YMMV / Universe at War

• Anti-Climax Boss: The end of Hierarchy and Masari campaigns. Difficulty of the rest of the missions not withstanding, your final goal in the former is just to kill Kamal Rex, who is exactly the same as the playable version of him. The Masari campaign has you tasked with destroying the Purifier. While durable, it can't fight back so it's no threat compared to the rest of the army you have to face. Then all you need to do is defeat Kamal again, which can happen without any effort on your part if attacks and is beaten at the Novus base.
• Awesome Music:
  • The soundtrack was done by Frank Klepacki of Command & Conquer fame, and it shows. You can download the OST here.
  • Divine Intervention is quite good. "The gods are real. And they hate you."
• Cliché Storm: The Hierarchy is given a completely bare-bones, paint-by-numbers characterization as an empire of Planet Looters. The one saving grace in this department is that they were given the name they were specifically to Avert the trope of the evil conquering nation in fiction always being referred to as an Empire.
• Evil Is Cool: The Hierarchy is a walking embodiment of everything awesome about alien invasions, they have massive walkers, flying saucers, an overlord with a cool name and the rockiest soundtrack in an RTS since the last Command & Conquer game.
• Funny Moments: A few creep in,
  Zessus: "I met a new hero who inspired me: General Peasant of the Humans."
  General Moore: "The name's Moore... and I suppose you're the... tooth fairy in all this?" (Keep in mind he's mouthing off to the most powerful Masari, their queen).

  • Any scene with Moore qualifies, it's his main purpose in the plot.
  • As well as this jewel by Kamal Re'x:
  "Commander Orlok! These noble intentions of ending bloodshed, an alliance with a fallen enemy; all very ambitious of you!... And if we were a race of FLOWERS it would be rewarded!"
  • This:
  Advisor: Commander, they're retreating.
  Orlok: They must think we have reinforcements. Let's get some before they find out we don't.
• Game-Breaker: in an ordinary match, you are always limited to six research project slots at any time. If you want to research something else, you have to give up already researched stuff to make room. HOWEVER, if you're Hierarchy and build a walker hardpoint granted by research, the hardpoint won't be removed once you give up its prerequisite! Therefore, it's entirely possible to finish the last campaign mission by building two Science Walkers then buying Assault Branch Suite 3 and filling one walker with Visual Enhancers (reveals the whole map) then giving up the three slots to buy Mutagenic Branch Suit 4 and filling the other walker with Cascade Reactors. Result: ability to launch radiation cascades without using a spotter, enabling you to utterly rape the defenders into oblivion.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: As the name implies, the track Act on Invasion bears more than a little similarity to Act on Instinct from the original Command & Conquer. Both tracks were made by the brilliant Frank Klepacki.
  • Here's a fun little minigame: play both songs at the same time and see how well you can get them to fit together. It actually works pretty well.
  • There are way more tracks Frank added as nods to his previous works, some more subtle than others. "Composite" is a slightly faster reimagining of "Mud" from Command & Conquer: Red Alert, especially the opening bass synth. Meanwhile, "Bass Case" takes cues after "Big Foot".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Novus and Masari campaigns consist exclusively of fighting the Hierarchy. The Masari's awakening and the fact that they were stated to be getting into conflicts with Novus could have provided the chance for missions where the two fight each other in their respective campaigns, but the Masari don't make their appearance until the Hierarchy campaign so Novus doesn't get to fight them. The Masari could have had missions fighting Novus but shortly after their campaign begins, Mirabal makes a truce with Masari against the Hierarchy due to the threat of the Purifier.