Ok Ill weigh in with my 2 cents. No need to rehash the actual plots and reviews above so Ill skip that (IMHO the plots was what it was I understand the constraints of trying to tell a
complete stroy in 60-90 mins though so it didnt bother me much) I think the worst thing about the film for most peeps is the fact the they had hope and expectations.
Hope is the first step on the road to letdown... Ill start with some of my thoughts going into the movie.
I come from a family with a background in Hollywood (some small FX studio but mostly animation studios like Disney, Warner, Touchstone, and Pixar) so my feelings are not as harsh as most. Also I understand budget constraints and they effect that has on the film. This is even more important when you start talking computer animation. GW did not finance one bit of this movie (and trust me that even though they are a big hobby company they are nothing when it comes to a production house. Most decent movies cost more than they make in years). Codex Pictures is a small studio who bankrolled this themselves. Previous work is so so kids stuff like bionicle and I think some of the team also worked on Roughnecks prior to coming to Codex. So knowing this the animation is exactly what I expected ,not great and about 5 or so years out of date compared to what I think most were expecting. CGI (even bad) is expensive and time consuming. It also dosnt leave much room for errors or redoing. I can guarantee you that the Intros to most video games (Dawn of War, Warcraft, Call of Duty, etc) cost more than the entire production cost beginning to end of this movie (the 30 sceond or so intro to dawn of war costs somewhere in the area of 3.5 mil if i remember correctly). The better video games can do this as sales of the game can and will pay for it. Thats why frequently the first advertisement for the game uses theses and not gameplay.
On the subject of story and plot one thing to keep in mind is that it must be self contained and finished in the limited time frame of the film. This is usually 60-120 minutes. Kind of hard to fill in the entire 40k background there so you pick a small microcosm and ignore the rest. This means no Vraks, No IG, No much of anything. They made the right choice in picking marines. Story was right choice rash, young, hot headed rookie moves up to be the hero and overcomes some insurmountable foe. Anime and movies have used this for decades now and it is pretty much a staple of the genre. No surprises there. Mostly generic lines with some good ones scattered in there mainly from the apothecary. While I feel that the limited edition release was aimed at fans I think the standard release (april or may I think) is aimed at the target audience (i.e. everyone who has no clue on 40K) which explains why
we are letdown- again with that expectation thing.
Voices were good. Surprisingly big names in there (though I agree most of the faces sucked in the film).
The biggest obstacle in the film is the animation. When doing CGI every object needs to be rendered and skinned and each object costs money, lots and lots of money. Explains why things are so empty and number of people in the film is so small.
I would not buy the limited set and didnt. If you get a chance to check out Id do it just dont have much expectations and enjoy it for what its a low budget, fan made for all intents and purposes, cheesy B Sci Fi waste of 75min of your life.
As for Damnantus....it is far worse. The reason it did not get released is due to German laws regarding IP. Short version is in Germany the artist retains the IP of thier creation and this would have caused GW to lose control of the IP in this regard. So it was shutdown even though many at GW were rooting for it. Its out there if you know where to look though.
Sorry for the long babbling post.