Supreme Commander 2

In both the skirmish and multiplayer modes, players start out with an Armored Command Unit (ACU), which is a large, powerful, construction-capable unit, as their avatar on the battlefield. They build mass extractors and power generators, which produce mass and energy, along with research facilities that produce research points faster. Players can also build land, air, and sea factories that produce land, air, and sea units, respectively. Players may also build add-on structures, expanding the capabilities of existing factories.

Some buildings and units are more advanced than others and as players' bases and research levels expand, so does the quality of their units. Research points can be spent on faction-specific tech trees to add bonuses, abilities and upgrades, and to unlock more-advanced units and buildings. The final result of this development is the unlocking of experimental units, which are large, research-unlocked units and buildings with significantly more power than other units and buildings. Experimental units can be produced from experimental gantries (buildings with the sole purpose of building experimental units) or built by engineers.

25 years after the expansion of the first game, the newly elected Coalition President is assassinated, causing the breakup of the coalition formed to defeat the Seraphim.

The first phase of the campaign (dedicated to the United Earth Federation, or UEF) follows Dominic Maddox, a UEF officer who is married to an Illuminate. After a botched training exercise, Maddox fights off rogue Cybran units at a communications array. After repelling the attack, his commanding officer, Colonel Rogers, takes sole command of all UEF forces on the planet. After defending a strategic weapons facility and encountering a mysterious Cybran named William Gauge in the Weddell Straits, Rogers orders Maddox to destroy the Illuminate colony of New Cathedral.

On initial release, the game received mixed critical reception. While many critics praised the game as a standalone title, it was generally perceived to be a simplified version of the original game. Alec Meer, reviewing for Eurogamer, predicted that the game would "leave much of its intended fanbase cold," and Tom Francis, writing for PC Gamer UK, later summarized Supreme Commander 2 as "a game that solved the accessibility issues of the first game, bought primarily by people who didn't want them solved." On Metacritic, which aggregates a wide range of reviews and assigns an average score, the game received 77 out of 100 based on 54 reviews. The original Supreme Commander received 86 out of 100 on Metacritic.

After release, the game received several major updates and changes. For example, one update released in October 2010 reworked the way construction was paid for, as described above. The changes were widely praised and the game was considered by critics to have been improved since release. For example, Tom Francis, who gave the game a score of 85 out of 100 on release, said in October 2010 that had he been reviewing it in October 2010, he would have given it a 90. PC Gamer UK named Supreme Commander 2 their 2010 "Co-op Game Of The Year".