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Ways to make Campaign Replayable and Challenging
SuperBumbleB
I loved the Ardennes Assault campaign. It had a persistent manpower pool that you had to be aware of lest you run out of men to build or reinforce units, some of the objectives were timed, there were bonus objectives, and there was some variation over the same levels so the same map could play differently in another playthrough.
From what I've seen in the DOW3 campaign so far, there doesn't seem to be a limit to your pool of soldiers which I guess I can live with and there was a form of time limit in the mission we saw where if you wasted too much time then the second portal gate would throw even more Eldar at you from the east, and there was a bonus objective to find Space Marine supplies around the map.
But before I continue, I have to say.... the level actually doesn't look hard 
For a late game mission, it looks rather easy. Yes, the orbital laser is one of the reasons but it seems like with proper unit micro-ing and composition the mission can be done rather quickly, like about 20 minutes (which a DOW3 Twitch player finished in 25 minutes whereas a lot took an hour). I think I can attribute that to playing thousands of hours of COH2 online 
but regardless, I do hope DOW3's campaign can be more challenging and has replayability.
I know the Time limit penalty is divisive in RTS games. Some people love it, some hate it. Personally, I love time limits like in Dead Rising and Star Craft 2 and wish more games had it. In a perfect world it would be a choice but given how time limits fundamentally change the game, it would be hard to implement both as an option. That's why for DOW3 I like that there seems to be a time limit that punishes slower players but I would also suggest a time limit that would reward players outside of the campaign. Assuming DOW3 has something like COH2's microtransactions, perhaps beating the time limit for bonus objectives or the entire mission would give you points to spend on in Multiplayer whether it be Elites or more customization. And it would make the campaign more difficult and tense too.
So basically, I think timed (bonus) objectives could make the campaign more replayable and difficult just like in the Wargame European Escalation campaign. And accomplishing these objectives within the time limit would reward players to use as ingame currency, so there'd be an incentive to do it (in WarGame, completing timed objectives gave you Command Points to unlock units)
Comments
Auric
Personally, I like time limited objectives in SOME missions in an rts, as it discourages you from sitting in your base and building up your death blob until ready, and then just walking across the map with it. This is already slightly discouraged in Dawn of War by attaching the resources to points that could be far away from your base, but even so, with a single point, you can eventually build everything you want. Having said this, I don't feel like every single mission should have a time limited objective. A good example of this taken too far (imo) is in XCOM2. I feel there were too many missions which gave you a time limit, which would severely punish you if you failed to complete them in time (losing your whole squad). I think an RTS needs to find a balance between fast paced tense missions and slow burning big engagement missions which allow the player to take their time and enjoy the scenery.
In terms of bonus objective rewards, I would be happy if it revealed more story content, or gave you an advantage in the next mission. As an example:
You make an all out assault against the temple the eldar are defending. They have a smaller base located deeper in the temple, which you can access through a narrow canyon/tunnel on the map. Bonus objective is to destroy this base. Upon destroying it, you get to examine some artifacts, which tell you more about the temple, or the weapon, or something. Furthermore, since the eldar in this small base are all dead, in the next level where you have breached the eldar outer defences, there are fewer defenders or 1 less base. I personally wouldn't mind this idea of the bonus objectives contributing some kind of resource to purchase more elite units, as I fully intend to play multiplayer, but a large number of players probably won't care, as they don't play multiplayer. While it could be something that is a reward for completing bonus objectives, I don't think it can be the only thing.
I agree that the mission looked quite easy if you know what you are doing (which most players would by this point in the campaign), but the difficulty could quite easily have been dialled back for the event. The last thing Relic want is for players to get frustrated with the mission as they can't beat it. Remember the intention is to show off the game! That can't happen if the player gets murdered.
One thing that I like the idea of for making people want to play the campaign multiple times would be to allow the player to complete the campaign with the faction of their choice. I would like it if each faction had their own set of final missions, and a different resolution to the campaign which fits with how that faction would deal with the weapon.
TLDR
Mix between timed/not-timed missions
Bonus objectives give story content/advantage in next mission/game currency
Mission was easy so players could enjoy it
Have multiple endings to the campaign with different missions for each faction
Gorb
I don't know Hivemind, TLS was one of the more popular modes in DoW II, and people have always played the series for the SP campaigns. I know that was a large part of why I liked DoW II so much.
Adridos
Before mentioning that a good campaign and MP portions of a fully-priced game are definitely not exclusive, I'd like to point out a simple fact.
The grand majority of people don't really play the game for competitive sake. The MP community forms about ~15% of the RTS player base.
Case in point, there have been successful games with unbalanced and really bad multiplayer aspect... most C&C games, Starcraft before Brood War, Warcraft 3, etc. Yet I can't think of a single RTS that had great MP without a good campaign that turned out successful except the Wargame series. Having a fun single-player experience is just as important as MP and as far as RTS games go, a few times as important (which doesn't mean forgoing MP would be a good idea, heavens no).
I3ishop
Multiplayer gives a game a long life span which some people view as what makes a game successful.
Looking at CoH2 achievements this is how it goes:
Campaign Conscript Play 1 Campaign mission 33.7%
Comp-Stomp Conscript Play 1 match versus AI 29.9%
Automatch Conscript Play 1 automatch game 16.3%
Campaign conscript is also the most common achievement of owners with CoH2 and in all fairness the campaign wasn't that good and had very little replayability outside of achievements.
Adridos
Multiplayer only extends the life-span but it's the single-player that creates the life in the first place.
RTS games are not Korean F2P MP games. You go in for the game, stay for the community, not the other way around.
Homeworld was defined by the moments from the campaign, the salvaging tactic and not through the MP, no matter how fun it was.
So was Dawn of War defined as the game for people who wanted 40k and not as a game for people who really wanted to see a love-child of Z's and Kohan's mechanics.
Company of Heroes was also a game people bought mostly because of the breathtaking atmosphere and a BoB campaign and less so because they found capping fuel points that appealing.
Even Starcraft 2 got people to buy the game on the premise of an amazing campaign and story while the MP was there for the taking.
Auric
It would also be nice if you could level up your elites during the campaign, having a choice of abilities for them as they level. I have fond memories of creating a ranged assault squad/force commander in the dow2 campaign just because I could. I would be encouraged to play again if I have lots of abilities to choose from (even if they are likely to keep units stuck to their defined roles this time).
I3ishop
I agree, I'm just pointing out what some people view as "successful game" and the achievement % show that the game is most successful with those that don't play it. More people seem to have bought it and not played any of the content...Then single player, then bot stomping and then multiplayer.
Adridos
Not at all, my friend. The money from tournaments does not flow into the game developers' account, hence why even with the ludicrous success that is Dota 2, Valve are really doing only one tournament and fund the game through kickstarter-like ordeals where only a quarter of the money goes to the tourney money pool and the rest goes to the game's development budget.
In fact, Starcraft 2 has killed Battle.net as well as LAN option precisely because the money from all the events in Brood War stayed with the organizing companies using illegal copies of the game. So is Dota 2 funded solely by the cosmetics and compendium sales. Stuff like tournaments benefit only the organizing companies, not the developers of the game and unless you are one of them, you are running the tournaments at a net loss.
I know I and just about anyone who had bought Warcraft 3 did it because we wanted to play the game's much-beloved campaign. The multiplayer of the game was pretty bad all in all and was replaced with custom maps just like it had in Brood War as far as the western servers were concerned.
The difference between DotA (and Dota 2, for that matter) and a normal RTS is that DotA was F2P... Warcraft 3's CD-key algorithm got solved so anyone who wanted the game could just torrent/burn a copy and create a fully functional Battle.net account. This is why the game flourished in Russia, China and other poorer countries in the world. It was fun and it was completely free.
Once it comes to actually buying the game, you can simply look at how successful MP-only FPS games are... things like Titanfall, Battlefront, Tribes 2 or any other failed MP-only shooter that wasn't a part of the big gang (Quake 3, BF, CoD, Halo). People are just not stupid enough to buy a game that will only be playable as long as there are players who are faced with the very same dilemma. You can drop the money into something that may be playable in a months time or you drop it into something that will surely keep some comunity at least 2 years down the line. The choice is logically obvious in this scenario.
Nautiloidor
Bu do you have any facts to back your opinion up? You shouldn't dismiss his idea for something that you then do yourself.
I think most of the people on this forum are probably "long time RTS" players, at least the people commenting on the MP and SP mechanics.
Your comparison to Moba's is invalid, as they are strictly multiplayer. Therefore obviously have a larger online community. They are also usually free to play, so have to make money somehow.
Look at most RTS sale numbers and then look at the online player count history for that game. I agree that the online community keeps RTS alive for years after most people have stopped playing. But the income generated from this small portion of the people that bought the game will be nothing compared to the income generated from people who bought the game and clocked up <100 hours playing the campaign and dabbling in the MP. This is what I do with most RTS games and it's what most people do. Look at the size of the CoH online player base compared to the number of sales, the same for most RTSs. The majority of people play games for fun and enjoyment, not to dedicate themselves to the game and become amazing and get competitive. The online/competitive community is just the demographic that tends to have the most visibility in matters like this.
It depends on the company, and what type of game they are trying to make, but in most situations, campaign mode and skirmishes are roughly equal in importance to MP, but the voice of SP just tends to get voiced less.