all games are not created equal

Simply put, Warcraft 3 failed to live up to its predecessor. 

W2 was an awesome sequel to the original and really expanded, not only the storyline and plot, but the playable units as well.  It increased the strategy portion of the game and added a new frontier with water units.  It was a great game for its time and probably the best RTS until Starcraft.

W3 lacked in nearly every aspect.  It's story was weak.  It focused so much on the heroes that it made the strategy feel awkward.  C&C does a good job or increasing the units abilities with experience but in W3 that balance is off.  I just ended up trying to kill everything with my hero to get its level up.   

My hope is that Starcraft 2 does not do what Warcraft 3 did.

While both are RTS's, W3 takes the cake. W2 brought the addition of bnet to Blizzard, but it never went far with it. All it had was melee style games. What w3 brought to the table was the use map settings style games of starcraft mixed with a new 3d aspect. Also w3 allowed for a level of customizability not seen before. With the addition of creating your own character model, though it is a lot of work, but enough people made them to justify it.  The story of w3 was better as well. It brought more controversy in the warcraft universe with the introduction of two new races and with many more plot elements.