Giant Bomb's Brad Shoemaker concisely described the dual strengths of the game: "StarCraft II might as well be two separate products in one box," he wrote. "The story-driven single-player RTS campaign, which is self-explanatory enough that anyone can play it, and a multiplayer mode so wildly fast-paced and complex that it's arguably the hardest video game, if not one of the hardest competitive activities period, to excel at on the planet."