Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

 PC
  • Publisher: NCSOFT
  • Release Date: Oct 23, 2015
User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 981 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 670 out of 981
  2. Mixed: 72 out of 981
  3. Negative: 239 out of 981
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  1. Flimsa
    Nov 19, 2015
    0
    HoT is not worth the money. The expansion is focused around events that you as player have to repeat over and over in order to gain progress for your character. All events in all maps follow the same pattern, pre event leads to final boss event. HoT does not offer any options to gain character progress besides events. This make HoT linear with directed way to play the game. AdventuresHoT is not worth the money. The expansion is focused around events that you as player have to repeat over and over in order to gain progress for your character. All events in all maps follow the same pattern, pre event leads to final boss event. HoT does not offer any options to gain character progress besides events. This make HoT linear with directed way to play the game. Adventures turned out to be mini games that are unavailable most of the time. I guess that with challenging content developers are referring to players performance for pre event and final boss event to success.… Expand
  2. madmax21st
    Oct 27, 2015
    3
    Not worth $50 at all. Just a collection of Living Story contents that supposed to be free and got released all at the same time, became not free just so ANet can say it's an expansion.
  3. eval
    Nov 20, 2015
    3
    Heart of Thorns summed up in a sentence : "A torn in my side".

    Really a majority of content that was available prior to the expansion was either gutted, taken away or put behind a grind wall. You will spend countless hours in HoT grinding masteries to get the loot that should just be given out for your time anyways. Oh and the majority of the advertised content for the expansion that    Heart of Thorns summed up in a sentence : "A torn in my side".

    Really a majority of content that was available prior to the expansion was either gutted, taken away or put behind a grind wall. You will spend countless hours in HoT grinding masteries to get the loot that should just be given out for your time anyways. Oh and the majority of the advertised content for the expansion that we were lead on to believe it would be there release is still being added into the game and a lot of it we don't even know when, it will just be "soon".

    With that said I'll got over each mode briefly:

    PVP: Has an absolute imbalence right now. The new class reverant is just straight up overpowered and outright does every thing better than 2-3 classes. We all seen it coming with 400-500% buffs before launch. A few other classes got the same treatment. While others got straight up nerfs balancing them to the old bar. Also, without a doubt almost every single elite spec is straight up power creep compared to the base classes. There is almost no reason with exception of druid to not take your elite spec as it will bring more damage and utility. I honestly feel sorry for people that did not buy HoT and are playing base classes. On top of that we still don't have leagues. Ranked que is disabled and match making is still an absolute mess. Current balance is just kneejerk nerf into the ground what ever were complaining about today. I mean seriously, there could be nothing wrong with thief, someone will post thief is op on the fourms give no valid reasons and you could log in tomorrow to see nerfs no one asked for. PvP is really hard to enjoy right now.

    WvW: got a new borderlands map. Which is great except it was built as if you were supposed to be gliding everywhere and then they went oh that would be P2W so we wont include those. Generally on the new maps you'll spend countless hours walking around from place to place seeing no one as the maps are so vast. They also did nothing to sort out many of the issues of wvw. It's still a gold sink despite taking out upgrade costs, it still has night/workday time capping issues, it still has no meaningful rewards. If you play WvW it is solely for the enjoyment.

    PvE: HoT brough intresting new maps. The main issue with them is finding one that actually has people in it. A large majority of the time you will be waiting on these timed events and looking in the LFG tool to find other people. Most of the events go on for a long time! minimal 40mins-2 hours depending on the map. Classes are suffering here in being allowed into groups because of pvp kneejerk balance and a large majority of players refuse to play with certain classes. Lastly, anet have started to make changes that reward unskillful play and punish playing well. An example of this is the new adjustment to druid; which made building healing power to heal your allies less effective at healing than not taking any healing power.    … Expand
  4. Zulke
    Oct 26, 2015
    2
    You ask for end-game?You got it ! Grindfest and time sink awaits you! Gated traits/waypoints,paywall fractals and more.Dont forget mass crashes. Arenanet way, nothing more,nothing less.
    P.S From reddit with love
  5. digSerenity
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    Not even a week before the nerf hammer hits and they cater to the people complaining about hard content after asking for it. Excellent job. Definitely better this way than to allow things to settle and for people to get used to playing with and against everything new.
  6. rezaiga
    Oct 27, 2015
    3
    This expansion isn't casual friendly so if you consider yourself to be one, better wait till they change things.

    The new world is so huge and amazingly beautiful but it stops there. 4th day after expansion and maps feels empty, it's a big problem because the difficulty in the new map is sooo much higher than old content and without other ppl around to help with events, it's almost    This expansion isn't casual friendly so if you consider yourself to be one, better wait till they change things.

    The new world is so huge and amazingly beautiful but it stops there. 4th day after expansion and maps feels empty, it's a big problem because the difficulty in the new map is sooo much higher than old content and without other ppl around to help with events, it's almost likely that you're gonna fail the event.

    Anet decision to upped difficulty with no downscale on events is like a middle finger to casual players.    … Expand
  7. rotondoman
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    I honestly struggle to find anything positive to say about the new content. First of all I find it boring. Unimaginative. I find myself running through it hoping against hope that I can get finished with whatever mundane task I'm doing and move on to the next one and then the one after that just so I can be done with it. Which makes me think the replay value of HOT is near zero. I don'tI honestly struggle to find anything positive to say about the new content. First of all I find it boring. Unimaginative. I find myself running through it hoping against hope that I can get finished with whatever mundane task I'm doing and move on to the next one and then the one after that just so I can be done with it. Which makes me think the replay value of HOT is near zero. I don't see $50+ worth of new content. Maybe $25. For $50 I'd expect enough content to rival the original release.

    To be fair I'm in a couple of guilds and except for myself my pve centric guild loves it the new areas, the content, the masteries, and all the rest. Especially the hang gliding. My wvw guild hates everything about the new wvw map and changes to that aspect of the game.

    If I had to do it all over again I would not buy this expansion. At least not until it had been out for a while and I could see how things were going to play out.    … Expand
  8. Kurfu
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    What used to be a huge *open* world that was fun and exciting to explore, has devolved into a game that keeps the players "on rails" via obnoxious terrain obstacles. If you enjoy running through canyons and over bridges, this is the game for you.
  9. bravoart
    Oct 28, 2015
    4
    As a player from the launch, this expansion is highly disappointing because as from the start, ArenaNet has decided to sell one thing, and deliver another.

    Any premise that the game has had of 'casual friendly' and 'no grinding' and so on, has been thrown out the window completely with the new expansion (if not a bit beforehand, honestly). There are multiple reviews here stating that    As a player from the launch, this expansion is highly disappointing because as from the start, ArenaNet has decided to sell one thing, and deliver another.

    Any premise that the game has had of 'casual friendly' and 'no grinding' and so on, has been thrown out the window completely with the new expansion (if not a bit beforehand, honestly).

    There are multiple reviews here stating that people are just lazy and want everything handed to them, but the reality is that if you were told that the game you paid $50 for, the majority of the content was locked behind doing the same events and waiting for the same events to respawn indefinitely with no ability to advance past it until you have done an arbitrary amount of grind, wouldn't you consider that unnecessary? This game has a rabid fanbase that believe that the developers can do no wrong and everyone should be aware of that.

    Gated content, forced group content that can not be soloed, bad rng, separation of reward effort, the list goes on and on of what is wrong with this expansion.

    As we've seen with ArenaNet multiple times before, they don't fix things without changing something else or knee-jerk nerfing whatever the playerbase moves to for counteracting the nerfs. The developers literally go out of their way to hobble progression again and again, yet people still defend it. Unbelievable.

    EDIT: Arenanet has made a concession with the amount of Hero Points needed for Elite specs and the gating of accessible hero points on the first new map. This is great and a solid step in the right direction, but that being said there is still a lot of issues pertaining to bait and switch and effort/reward that still need to be reviewed.

    Also be warned that community sites are actively guilting and insulting people with low review scores to change them to 10/10s. The game is not that great, but the communities about it are even worse.    … Expand
  10. KoalaMeatPie
    Oct 25, 2015
    4
    The following is my own personal experience with the Expansion soo far - I find the expansion to be just a mess of a chore.

    Everything from the level design, story progression, timed events and mastery system has been made to slow you down and hold you back. Let me start with the lesser annoyance, the level design. You can not go from one point to another directly, like in every    The following is my own personal experience with the Expansion soo far - I find the expansion to be just a mess of a chore.

    Everything from the level design, story progression, timed events and mastery system has been made to slow you down and hold you back.

    Let me start with the lesser annoyance, the level design. You can not go from one point to another directly, like in every other map of the game, you must wind and weave, and travel a maze of verticals, up and down, which without a glider is a huge pain because nearly everything are Elites or Vets which knock you down or cripple you. Why oh god, must everything cripple you?

    Story progression: Remember how they added a whole punch of level caps to the story missions in GW2 awhile ago? It's the same thing but with the mastery system. You must always be a level over next in masteries to continue with the "Very Urgent Chase", which is an issue because masteries take a long time to level up, how? Because

    Mastery progression places up huge walls which you need to go around and grind little rewarding events - which are interrupted in Auric basin, at least, by the Gates event - which are literally walls in front of walls. There is a 15 minute period where you can’t go into the city, walls are blocking the doors - then a 45? Minute event where you need to to coordinate with other players on the map to chisel down vines which are trying to get into the heart of the city. And you can forget trying to do this with 15 people.

    This, for the very least, interrupted our Guild hall claiming last night by ONE and a HALF hours because all Waypoints where contested, no way to teleport into the city, no Mesmer, no NOTHING, can’t run and glide because of the bubble at the heart, not even a Waypoint INSIDE the hole inside the heart of the city to act as a rallying waypoint. Those that were in, were stuck in, those that were out were SOL until the event failed or disappeared.

    Now, about the Hero points, it’s very nice and all that they say you get “ten points” each event, but the events are seriously over grindy. Whoever designed them, made it so you can not solo them like in the old world, you need half a raid to to get even one champ down. Their health and toughness is through the roof, not to mention all the conditions they throw at you. You can’t do any one of them with less than 4 people. Try finding 4 people, depending on your Time Zome and IRL commitments, it can be next to impossible.

    Add to that the constant crashes (I pressed Print Screen - I crashed, I was talking to an NPC, double clicked to talk to another - I crashed. I changed maps - I crashed, I FINALLY lvled to Mastery 3 - I crashed, I spawned my glidder - crashed) When you do find a populated event, the chances of you crashing are N times more, and when you log back in - over flow, if you’re lucky. If not, event over.

    TL;DR; : Everything about HoT is made to slow you down, hold you back and pad out the game and you should care.

    I want to raid. I LIKE being in a huge group and taking down challenges - the guild hall claiming was LOADS of fun. I've been doing the same Fractals for two years, it's FUN. "Lack of content" is not an issue - the quality is.

    They purposefully broke up the pace of the game to make it feel bigger. I don’t care about leveling, at all. They way they made it is just soo convoluted. I want to get my masteries up, have my druid healing skills, and raid with my guild.

    Lastly you want to know how to do a well paced story without holding you back and padding things out? Guild Wars 1 (Prophecies and Nightfalls). Somehow - they lost sight of how to do it properly.    … Expand
  11. Aerixa
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    Incredibly tedious and not rewarding. You're grinding the same events, in massive, empty zones, to try to unlock the next tier of some odd skill to reach that spot on the map you need to be one step closer to that cool specialized class they showed. I've been playing since the game launched, and it's a complete 180 on the fun, solo, play at your own pace gameplay that this game started outIncredibly tedious and not rewarding. You're grinding the same events, in massive, empty zones, to try to unlock the next tier of some odd skill to reach that spot on the map you need to be one step closer to that cool specialized class they showed. I've been playing since the game launched, and it's a complete 180 on the fun, solo, play at your own pace gameplay that this game started out as. I'm going to shelve it for a bit, as it's just grinding to grind. I really wanted to love and support this, but I can't enjoy it in the current state.… Expand
  12. steve13
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Arena Net pulled a complete switch. So much for the play your way with no grind. The game is now nothing but a grind with gated content. They are even adding raids. This was clearly done as a time sink as there is not enough content to merit fifty dollars. Count me out. I am done with this game.
  13. Valkysas
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    They took a awesome do what ever you want when you want to game and turned it into a Group only game
    with gating like you never seen be for 100% wast of money this expansion will be dead and soon the game if this is the direction they are going .. do you like to log in a game once or twice a week since that's the time all the other ppl log in and never be able to do any thing until then !    They took a awesome do what ever you want when you want to game and turned it into a Group only game
    with gating like you never seen be for 100% wast of money this expansion will be dead and soon the game if this is the direction they are going .. do you like to log in a game once or twice a week since that's the time all the other ppl log in and never be able to do any thing until then !
    ppl can't even find groups for the new HOT zone and it HAS to be done with one LOL    … Expand
  14. Thunderwitch
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    Developers deceived everyone. They promised one thing and actually do the opposite. "in our game will never have to grind," but a more appropriate name for the game is now "Grind Wars 2: Heart of Grind". My score of 0, I expected more. It is no longer my favorite game. I'm from little friend guild. I paid 100$, but i cant see Guild Hall, becouse need 3 or more people in guild. All event isDevelopers deceived everyone. They promised one thing and actually do the opposite. "in our game will never have to grind," but a more appropriate name for the game is now "Grind Wars 2: Heart of Grind". My score of 0, I expected more. It is no longer my favorite game. I'm from little friend guild. I paid 100$, but i cant see Guild Hall, becouse need 3 or more people in guild. All event is unnecessarily complicated in new location, and on these very hard "group" events extremely small number of people… Expand
  15. Bragollac
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    It's just a simple patch, not a massive add-on like blizzard do.

    They nerfed dungeons and fractals, so PvE Content simply ruined.

    Heart Of Thrones absolutely not interesting. Boring gameplay.
  16. ethanDS
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    The community asked for an expansion when Anet were content with pushing living story.

    This is the result of living story becoming an expansion. It's lackluster, has little meaty content in it and is just paid fluff. I could easily see the majority of this content being living story given to us over the next year, instead due to the demand of an actual expansion, we have it now in a    The community asked for an expansion when Anet were content with pushing living story.

    This is the result of living story becoming an expansion. It's lackluster, has little meaty content in it and is just paid fluff. I could easily see the majority of this content being living story given to us over the next year, instead due to the demand of an actual expansion, we have it now in a chunk.

    I would ask anyone looking to purchase be wary, this is not your typical "massive scale expansion", very little to get excited about. I feel I've wasted money.    … Expand
  17. theGinch
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    Everything is gated behind mastery points and other artificial buzzkills to disguise the very limited amount of content in this 'expansion'. Only the grim or truly desperate can muster the will to grind 400 hero points to actually play one of the elite specializations. For the rest of us the expansion is incredibly empty.

    Not sure if i have ever seen a bigger bait and switch than heart    Everything is gated behind mastery points and other artificial buzzkills to disguise the very limited amount of content in this 'expansion'. Only the grim or truly desperate can muster the will to grind 400 hero points to actually play one of the elite specializations. For the rest of us the expansion is incredibly empty.

    Not sure if i have ever seen a bigger bait and switch than heart of thorns.    … Expand
  18. zhyrn
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Anet nerfed every dungeon rewards (Core game) by 66% in order to force players to move in to the expansion content. You also won't receive the new Fractal Dailies rewards as the game will gently tell you that: "you need Heart of Thorns in order to unlock the full rewards".

    So basically they took content that was Vanilla and placed it under the expansion paywall. Before the expansion    Anet nerfed every dungeon rewards (Core game) by 66% in order to force players to move in to the expansion content. You also won't receive the new Fractal Dailies rewards as the game will gently tell you that: "you need Heart of Thorns in order to unlock the full rewards".

    So basically they took content that was Vanilla and placed it under the expansion paywall. Before the expansion was released I could play Fractals up until 50 and be fully rewarded doing so. Now, from Fractal Level 20+ my rewards are partially blocked and it feels like crap.

    Im not a F2Per, I paid for the core game ever since launch and I'm getting screwed over.

    This is not what a MMO expansion should be about. Company should encourage you to buy XPac by showing you new awesome things to get, not by nerfing the **** out of existing content or stright away locking.

    This is sounding more and more like those ****ty mobile games where people who pay get extra currency/bonus rewards over those who don't.

    I was waiting for a lower price to buy the expansion but now I'm genuinely pissed off and seeing all the grind and gate in the new expansion coupled with the former facts I've just mentioned, I wouldn't pay more than 10 bucks for this. Anet has lost a client here. A client who supported them for 10 years (back in GW1 LAUNCH!    … Expand
  19. Jason_Field
    Oct 27, 2015
    2
    No one is going to be more disappointed than myself. After having supported this developer for such a long time I think I'm finally at the point where I have to part ways. The maps are great, enemies look cool but locking the masteries behind such grindy time gates has really been a sour taste in my mouth.

    Had they not locked this content as well as the story behind this, I feel this    No one is going to be more disappointed than myself. After having supported this developer for such a long time I think I'm finally at the point where I have to part ways. The maps are great, enemies look cool but locking the masteries behind such grindy time gates has really been a sour taste in my mouth.

    Had they not locked this content as well as the story behind this, I feel this expansion wouldn't last long at all due to the lack of anything really meaningful.

    On the surface you'll find an intriguing game but you'll soon come to realise there is little substance.    … Expand
  20. AusJock
    Oct 26, 2015
    2
    Massive, massive disappointment with the HoT exapnsion... WvW is going to be gutted, the grind is outrageously bad and like nothing seen in any Guild Wars game previously.
    Casual players can expect to spend the next few months at-least just to get the elite specialization on a single character.
    There is an amazing amount of new content but every portion of it requires grinding in order    Massive, massive disappointment with the HoT exapnsion... WvW is going to be gutted, the grind is outrageously bad and like nothing seen in any Guild Wars game previously.
    Casual players can expect to spend the next few months at-least just to get the elite specialization on a single character.
    There is an amazing amount of new content but every portion of it requires grinding in order to learn masteries or gain Hero Points.

    If I could get a refund for my pre-purchase, I 100% would.    … Expand
  21. Vexia
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    As someone who Pre-purchased the first game, played the beta, pre-purchased the second game and played that beta as well, I am so severely disappointed in Arenanet, the now "old" content is laggy as hell. While the new content is buggy as hell, I assume the pressure was on them to release it quickly but there are so many bugs in it, that players are getting 2-3 patches a day minimum, andAs someone who Pre-purchased the first game, played the beta, pre-purchased the second game and played that beta as well, I am so severely disappointed in Arenanet, the now "old" content is laggy as hell. While the new content is buggy as hell, I assume the pressure was on them to release it quickly but there are so many bugs in it, that players are getting 2-3 patches a day minimum, and those barely address the amount of bugs in the game, the lag, the same old issues they had before which never got fixed, and a complete disregard for real juicy content, the expansion is a pretty piece of fluff.

    My experience with the expansion, was to login, attempt to do the story, die in it, being unable to revive I had to exit because the pop up button for revival didn't show up, and upon re-entering the game, the story had vanished out of the game but remains in the log, being permanently unable to complete it. It's bugs like these that make you wonder why did I buy the expensive pre-purchase pack with all the gems, when after 5 days I still cannot complete any story, any new content, i'm still stuck in arena net limbo. waiting for the next patch and hoping that my fix will be in this one.

    Guild Halls were a major let down, a very weak monster fight in order to take control of the room, only 2 guild halls to choose from, mapped instances where your guild members are constantly shuffed from instance to instance as the game makes the rooms bigger or smaller, getting pop ups every 2-5 minutes telling you to switch maps. And we all know that Guild Halls are Arenanets way of fixing their very poorly designed market system which has a overflow of too many useless materials, and now all of a sudden these materials (examples carrots) are now needed by the thousands to use as a material to build your guild hall. Guild window looks messy, it's hard to find the things your looking for. THE LAG. IS NO JOKE.
    If you dare to open your guild window to look through your roster there is a huge amount of lag.

    GAME CRASHES CONSTANTLY, my files aren't broken, the game just decides to close it's self at random times. Which beats the black screen of doom that was happening a week ago.

    Fractals are fast, but are still just as boring as ever, but more appealing now, because you only need to be stuck with the same fools for 1 map rather than 4.

    The Elite specializations look cool, but that's about it, most feel slow and clunky and difficult to chain into a real attack.

    THERE WAS SO MUCH HYPE, and I was hyped for it, I even got my friends to play, and so far I've been nothing but disappointed, I knew I needed to keep my expectations low, so I wouldn't be disappointed if something wasn't as great as I'd expect it to be, but this is just ridiculous.    … Expand
  22. Andrx
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    Everything was gated and now consist on an infinite grinding. No kidding, if you have alts you are going to be busy for the next year grinding the same thing over and over just so you can use the new skills that you bought with HOT.
  23. Joejones
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    The Heart of Thrones expansion is a major let down. I sat and watched and waited before purchasing it, and then bought one for myself and a friend. Now I feel like I got ripped off. Arenanet went on and on about how he new specializations were no better or stronger than any other classes, but threw the hero points needed to open them behind gated content and are charging a ridiculous amtThe Heart of Thrones expansion is a major let down. I sat and watched and waited before purchasing it, and then bought one for myself and a friend. Now I feel like I got ripped off. Arenanet went on and on about how he new specializations were no better or stronger than any other classes, but threw the hero points needed to open them behind gated content and are charging a ridiculous amt of points to fully open these specs. You can't go grab them, you can't do most alone, and the main story line is bugged and still hasn't been fixed. Please don't waste your time or money on this product.… Expand
  24. Simbob
    Oct 26, 2015
    3
    The expansion in the current state is terrible. It basically wants you to eat soup with a fork, to gain access to the spoon. Everything is gated and grindy. It is a long way from the original GW2 philosophy of play your way.

    Anet have committed the cardinal sin in gaming of alienating their casual player. The casuals are the ones that keep a game ticking over, pay for the newest skin,    The expansion in the current state is terrible. It basically wants you to eat soup with a fork, to gain access to the spoon. Everything is gated and grindy. It is a long way from the original GW2 philosophy of play your way.

    Anet have committed the cardinal sin in gaming of alienating their casual player. The casuals are the ones that keep a game ticking over, pay for the newest skin, like to change their character design and pay for it. They have scrapped dungeons in favor for fractals, however, they do not give you any new fractals, so you are playing the same stuff over again.

    What have Anet been doing for the last 3 years? if this is their output of 3 years of work, they might as well call it a day now!    … Expand
  25. Cameirus
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    HOTs has its good points, nice map design, gliding! and things like guild halls are all nice, however its crippled by the bizzare approach taken by Anet in putting excessive gating and grinds into the game, and locking key expansion features behind walls.

    The big selling point of the expansion is elite specialisations, which change how a class is played, these have been hyped and    HOTs has its good points, nice map design, gliding! and things like guild halls are all nice, however its crippled by the bizzare approach taken by Anet in putting excessive gating and grinds into the game, and locking key expansion features behind walls.

    The big selling point of the expansion is elite specialisations, which change how a class is played, these have been hyped and rightly so they are really fun. I know that from beta weekends. Not from the live game, as in the live game they are locked behind a stupidly high amount of hero points needed to unlock them. A normal trait line takes 65 points to unlock, an elite one takes 60 points just to start, and 400 to unlock, no thats not a typo. Its absurd.
    Yes hero challenges in the new zones grant 10 points, but these generally require groups and are locked behind another gate in requiring specific masteries to access....so that fails as well.

    All in all, very disappointing for Anet to take this path, so contrary to what GW2 was.    … Expand
  26. Fairchild
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    horrible. they spent a year and half to make jumping puzzles and super tough trash mobs (that drop no loot). i suppose this makes sense...because there isn't any new loot in the expac. 2 new armor sets...original game launched with 30 or more. zero content and none on the horizon.
  27. XYLUM
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    I give this a 3 out of 10 because, more then add to the existing Guildwars 2 game, they castrated it.

    The nerfed dungeons, they nerfed fractals and locked the loot in box that you have to BUY keys in order to open. They simply took Living Story Season 3 and added some mechanics, and a game update and hard gated the progression through insane amounts of grind, left out all of the    I give this a 3 out of 10 because, more then add to the existing Guildwars 2 game, they castrated it.

    The nerfed dungeons, they nerfed fractals and locked the loot in box that you have to BUY keys in order to open.

    They simply took Living Story Season 3 and added some mechanics, and a game update and hard gated the progression through insane amounts of grind, left out all of the major selling points the promised like raids, new legendaries and new squad system and charged us 50 bucks for it.

    I regret the purchase, and am hoping another polished MMO hits the market so I can give Arenanet back what they gave me with Heart of Thorns ...the middle finger.    … Expand
  28. TacticalLamp
    Oct 29, 2015
    2
    GW2 used to be a really fantastic game with an incredible variety of options and things to do.With the release of HoT that variety has shrunk to mindless killing of mobs and farming of events to gather experience to complete masteries. Other than exploring new zones, elite specialization, and other ridiculous amounts of farming ( because the expansion really botched the economy as aGW2 used to be a really fantastic game with an incredible variety of options and things to do.With the release of HoT that variety has shrunk to mindless killing of mobs and farming of events to gather experience to complete masteries. Other than exploring new zones, elite specialization, and other ridiculous amounts of farming ( because the expansion really botched the economy as a whole), the only thing to do at the moment is bash your face against your keyboard as you tag mobs to participate in events because often it is too difficult to farm mobs on your own as the new mechanics of random mobs disable your character into oblivion. When raids release there will be one more option for things to do fortunately, but with the way arenanet changed crafting and the economy, crafting the needed gear is MUCH more difficult than it was previously. Somewhere in the past several years developers have confused "difficult" for "time consuming" and it is a crime. Difficult content is wonderful. Time consuming content breeds resentment. Many things need to change as this game went from a really fantastic well rounded game to a grind gated, treadmill-like, tread up a giant mountain of broken dreams.… Expand
  29. videot76
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Complete disappointment. Anet's philosophy for GW2 was always "play the way you want" and "no grinding". This has been completely thrown out and stomped on as HoT offers NOTHING but grind, grind, and grind. 4 new maps you say? Even if they are bigger than the old ones, they feel extremely limited and you have to do the same handful of events over and over and over and over to be allowed toComplete disappointment. Anet's philosophy for GW2 was always "play the way you want" and "no grinding". This has been completely thrown out and stomped on as HoT offers NOTHING but grind, grind, and grind. 4 new maps you say? Even if they are bigger than the old ones, they feel extremely limited and you have to do the same handful of events over and over and over and over to be allowed to progress the story, which is astonishingly short and anticlimactic.
    The new specializations, one of the main selling points, requires you to grind everyting to the max to use.
    The new raids and legendaries, other selling points, aren't even included and will (maybe) be added at a later date.
    And what IS there is bugged beyond all reason. Remember the abortive pre-launch world invasion event and that it was so bugged that Anet didn't even ATTEMPT to fix it on account of being TOO broken? Well, that's the functionality you can expect from the entirety of Heart of Thorns. The final boss is a clusterf*** of broken, botched and outright missing mechanics, and that it passed testing proves that no actual person actually played it, but just checked "tested" on some form and went home for the day.
    I dare not even think of what the raids will be like - as late as a couple of weeks ago they were too broke to even be beta tested.

    Also, they not-so-sneakily force old players to buy the expansion by putting all rewards behind a mile-thick paywall. All Vanilla rewards have been nerfed through the floor to discourage people from playing old content, which will prove a mistake when the hype settles and people realize they are left with 4 minuscule new maps and a handful of endlessly repeating, slow, wearisome and plain unfunny events. Oh, and did I mention that one of those maps is the compulsory cliché gigantic insectoid hive? Because it totally is - but here's the twist: said insectoids play NO role in the story and seems to be shoehorned in simply to give some variety to the otherwise endless and monotonous jungle.

    I was going to give it a 1, but writing this I realize it doesn't merit even that. Without bugs it might even have been a solid 2, but releasing a full prize product with this many problems is simply not ok on any level. Even less okay is taking the core concept of the game and turning it completely in and out, transforming GW2 into a mindless grind for minuscule rewards and charging extra for the "privilege" of doing so.
    Thanks for freeing up more of my spare time, Anet - I definitely lost most of my interest in your products in one fell swoop!

    TL:DR Short, extremely buggy, grindy as hell and not much to show for it either. Comepletely and totally underwhelming in every single department - except the graphics, which are kinda nice. But they can be watched for free on Youtube.    … Expand
  30. bec
    Oct 26, 2015
    4
    The best part of the expansion is the new character specializations...they are an amazing way to fall in love with your character again. The new maps, well, they are difficult to navigate to say the least. Dead ends, enemies waiting to kill you (some in just 3 or 4 shots). Do the landscapes look beautiful? Absolutely. But we already knew that Anet could create a beautiful game. AThe best part of the expansion is the new character specializations...they are an amazing way to fall in love with your character again. The new maps, well, they are difficult to navigate to say the least. Dead ends, enemies waiting to kill you (some in just 3 or 4 shots). Do the landscapes look beautiful? Absolutely. But we already knew that Anet could create a beautiful game. A difficult to navigate map could just be skipped, I suppose, as could nearly impossible to complete group events which require mega zergs, it seems. The problem is the personal stories, many of which will require multiple deaths and retries from checkpoints...I don't understand how enemies you can't beat on your own are in personal stories...similar problem in original GW2 release, which Anet eventually nerfed (anyone remember Claw Island?). I have heard people raving about the expansion, I can see why. I have also heard people raging about it...and I get that too. For me, this expansion is interesting...it is everything, except fun. It's a lot of dodging, dying, retrying, grinding, etc. Also kind of divisive, older/more experienced players tend to rage at noobs for dying...but a lot of the enemies have new skills, even new AoE attacks, no one goes into the map the first time knowing what to do. For some, the gliders and mushrooms (once unlocked) are intuitive, for others less so...I am one of those people that has had to rely on a couple of helpful youtube videos already. Maybe one day this will be fun, but it's not now.… Expand
  31. terryhu700
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    I rate games on "Will I play or not?".

    One of the core selling points of the HoT expansion is elite specs, just look at the amount of news/threads/releases involving them. It provides a different play style of existing professions/classes. HoT Expansion is a definite "not going to play" due to the fact that elite specs are heavily gated from a currency called Hero Points which are    I rate games on "Will I play or not?".

    One of the core selling points of the HoT expansion is elite specs, just look at the amount of news/threads/releases involving them. It provides a different play style of existing professions/classes.

    HoT Expansion is a definite "not going to play" due to the fact that elite specs are heavily gated from a currency called Hero Points which are ALSO gated behind Masteries which are specific to certain maps. It's like a grind inside a grind.

    I agree that a certain amount of work is supposed to be done before unlocking elite specs but the amount Anet is testing and using players a guinea pigs (as usual) is absurd. I do not appreciate being a guinea pig, I do not appreciate forced grinding just to extend the life of the game.

    With this, it;s a definite "Will not play" for me and rate it a score of 1. Regardless of what else they put in, the core draw of games is the gameplay itself and gw2 is a majorly a combat based game. Not a puzzle, not a mystery, not a dialogue based game; it is a combat based game.    … Expand
  32. RedBaron2015
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    ANet decided to hide all the new skills behind a huge wall of grinding just to make this expansion to last. Instead of focusing in the playability of the game, ANet decided to make everything hard in order to force the players to invest hundreds of hours just to get the new skills (while using the premium shop boosters to increase their revenues).

    HoT expansion is toxic. Do not waste    ANet decided to hide all the new skills behind a huge wall of grinding just to make this expansion to last. Instead of focusing in the playability of the game, ANet decided to make everything hard in order to force the players to invest hundreds of hours just to get the new skills (while using the premium shop boosters to increase their revenues).

    HoT expansion is toxic. Do not waste your money. You will be paying to suffer and get frustrated. A complete waste of money and time.    … Expand
  33. popgoblin
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    After being a loyal customer for 8 years this is the breaking point. $50 for 4 new zones, a raid that isn't released yet, nerfed content rewards in non-expansion areas, and arbitrary grind walls. The core game philosophy was that you could reach endgame however you like, this was first altered with the release of the new player experience forcing new players to grind levels in PvE beforeAfter being a loyal customer for 8 years this is the breaking point. $50 for 4 new zones, a raid that isn't released yet, nerfed content rewards in non-expansion areas, and arbitrary grind walls. The core game philosophy was that you could reach endgame however you like, this was first altered with the release of the new player experience forcing new players to grind levels in PvE before being able to play PvP or WvW, craft, or do other basic things. Now the only way to get the new specializations is either grind them out in the Maguuma or do an even longer grind in WvW. They've changed so much from their old positive values I don't think I can financially support this company anymore, unless the next expansion goes back to the old ways.… Expand
  34. Gamermama
    Oct 26, 2015
    3
    The new WvW - cool with it's new challenges and change of maps. Guild Halls - just long over due (should have been a part of GW2 upon release). The new map - a basic waste of 74.99. I spent the whole weekend (even took a vacation day) to get level one in gliding LOL. This map is impossible for a gamer like me. Will not waste any more of my fun time in there. I'll gather my Hero PointsThe new WvW - cool with it's new challenges and change of maps. Guild Halls - just long over due (should have been a part of GW2 upon release). The new map - a basic waste of 74.99. I spent the whole weekend (even took a vacation day) to get level one in gliding LOL. This map is impossible for a gamer like me. Will not waste any more of my fun time in there. I'll gather my Hero Points other ways for specializations - even though it will take a year. Mostly disappointed it isn't soloable - which is what I prefer in my PvE time. Not the "play as you want" game I paid for.… Expand
  35. MordinAshe
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    Long time GW2 player here. TL;DR version> Avoid this for now, some poor game design decisions have serious impact right now.

    More elaborate version: GW2 were always about non-grinding and going directly for the fun stuff. This expansion is the antithesis of this, as was already mentioned. Core mechanics are either character-exclusive or require tens of hours of grinding. Who says    Long time GW2 player here. TL;DR version> Avoid this for now, some poor game design decisions have serious impact right now.

    More elaborate version: GW2 were always about non-grinding and going directly for the fun stuff. This expansion is the antithesis of this, as was already mentioned. Core mechanics are either character-exclusive or require tens of hours of grinding. Who says otherwise is lying, the only thing account bound in this expansion are masteries and you need 80+ hours of making a dent here.

    New locations are terrible by design. Too difficult for almost every solo player. That wouldn't be that bad if there were people around, but there aren't. You barely make any money on the map so when you finish it you move forward. As it is now most diehards already completed the map and it is now terribly empty, which means that almost no one can get those champion hero points you need for elite specialization that would make you stronger, which you need to be able to survive on this map. A loop of failed attempts of various kind is sure to follow.

    Another downside is that some game mechanics are still not as they should be. Anet tried to banish the holy trinity (DPS, tank, healer) but only achieved moderate success. DPS has its place, tanks have place too but healing characters are still ridiculously not worth the investment. It mattered little in original game but now when champions kill 30-40 people in a fight you really could use some healing. Sadly healing is as discouraged as ever, effectively shrinking the holy trinity to holy duo (tank, DPS).

    This expansion pack is difficult to assess right now because when there are hundreds of players on the new map it somehow works. When they leave for the rest of eternity it will be an empty, desolate place where no one will go because they won't have a chance at surviving. Diehards won't come back because there are no rewards and all of this will be for nothing.

    Many bad game design choices, and choices that go completely against the original intent of GW2. What made GW2 great is no more true in HoT.
    Also, I hope that Anet didn't spend too much money on paid meta critic reviews because this game moved from 3.8 to 6 in only a few hours. Coincidence?    … Expand
  36. RainbowSix
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    I was extremely excited for H.O.T., I was looking forward to playing through the new maps using the new elite specs, turns out that they are locked behind a huge mind-numbing grind. In fact, just about everything in H.O.T. is locked behind a grind. Moving around in the new maps are extremely frustrating because of confusing map designs and brutal mobs that just one-shot you. Hero pointsI was extremely excited for H.O.T., I was looking forward to playing through the new maps using the new elite specs, turns out that they are locked behind a huge mind-numbing grind. In fact, just about everything in H.O.T. is locked behind a grind. Moving around in the new maps are extremely frustrating because of confusing map designs and brutal mobs that just one-shot you. Hero points cannot be soloed because most are champs with massive amounts of HP that are on a timer...good luck trying to get a group to help you out, with most zones being empty. Heart of Thorns turned out to be a huge let down, stay away from this poorly designed expac until ANET fixes this disaster.… Expand
  37. zyndr0m
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    HOWEVER. Everything is gated. Hard. ArenaNet is falling back on their pre-expansion ways of making everything a confusing chore, which is something I was hoping they would NOT do seeing as the expansion is already PAID.
    I can't play my elite spec properly until I've already completed 50-100% of the jungle including all masteries that gate those hero challenges, and some of them absolutely    HOWEVER. Everything is gated. Hard. ArenaNet is falling back on their pre-expansion ways of making everything a confusing chore, which is something I was hoping they would NOT do seeing as the expansion is already PAID.
    I can't play my elite spec properly until I've already completed 50-100% of the jungle including all masteries that gate those hero challenges, and some of them absolutely require groups. To make matters worse, some elite specs require pretty radical stat shifts from the previous meta, which are made more expensive by how ascended gear was changed to require more materials. Time-gated materials. I don't think I'm ever going to use Scrapper in any serious capacity because I simply don't have time to invest in the gear.
    I have to grind mindlessly for masteries. In the case of language masteries I'm grinding to have the opportunity to grind to purchase items, as if this is supposed to make me feel accomplished.    … Expand
  38. rubble_rabble
    Oct 26, 2015
    2
    With the expansion, Arenanet have fully departed from their "Guild Wars 2" creed of no grind, play as you like, play with your friends.

    While the visuals and music are well done - hence the points, and the elite specialisations are good in theory, the rest of it is a complete shambles: - 100% korean grind style "content" - gated behind ludicrous grind-fests to stretch that content    With the expansion, Arenanet have fully departed from their "Guild Wars 2" creed of no grind, play as you like, play with your friends.

    While the visuals and music are well done - hence the points, and the elite specialisations are good in theory, the rest of it is a complete shambles:

    - 100% korean grind style "content"
    - gated behind ludicrous grind-fests to stretch that content out artificially
    - gating means you can't play with friends anymore
    - people with more than 1 character are actively being punished for it, because it takes ages to unlock the elite specs for all of them
    - players being shoehorned into fractals and away from dungeons
    - loot from these fractals locked behind masteries

    All in all, HOT is one big "get ready to prepare to giddy-up to start having fun".

    The faint hopes I have for Arenanet removing the gating at some point is the only reason I'm not getting a refund - and that as a player who has sunk lots, and willingly, of money into gems (for cosmetic items, ..).    … Expand
  39. Dallyoop
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    This expansion has added a massive grind for content that was suppose to be available on release. I wouldn't pick this up until it's corrected. Not only will you be required to grind a massive amount of a elite specialization, but you will have to do it over and over and over again for EVERY character class you want to play. It's insane.
  40. SlipperySnake
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    So depressing and dull one loses interest in the new 'content' after say 20 mins of trying to figure out which mushroom to jump on to reach the champion you cannot fight. Soulless game that forces players to play the new 'areas'. Problem is no one wants to play there.
  41. azerty247
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    Unfortunately, the systems in this expansion are tedious enough to make me feel like this is a free-to-play expansion, even though that's not the case.
  42. Psychocadillac
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    HoT's selling point was added maps, extended content and new specializations. Would not have purchased this product if I knew Anet would turn GW2 into a "grind" oriented game with story gating. The expansion had potential and the developers dropped the ball.
  43. kittening
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    Anet replaced the grind for gear (common in the mmorpg world) with the grind for masteries.
    Both absolve to the same function, gating content.
    If the endgame was just a cosmetic race in the past, this is no longer true.
    Plus they nerfed most of the old content (dungeons/fractals) in order to sell this smoking cow pie they call expansion. Shame on them. Loved Anet since GW1 launch. This is BS.
  44. mon34480
    Oct 26, 2015
    3
    I shall try to be unbiased as possible in this review:
    Pros:
    - Essentially newer game modes (raids), dungeons, maps, WvW, pvp...etc in an already good game who can complain? - New "classes" - New game mechanics such as gliders which bring new ways for those who enjoy jump puzzles. Cons: - One of the main selling points of the game (druid) which was marketed to bring in new play    I shall try to be unbiased as possible in this review:
    Pros:
    - Essentially newer game modes (raids), dungeons, maps, WvW, pvp...etc in an already good game who can complain?
    - New "classes"
    - New game mechanics such as gliders which bring new ways for those who enjoy jump puzzles.

    Cons:
    - One of the main selling points of the game (druid) which was marketed to bring in new play styles which place emphasis on more organisation, support and team based runs is entirely non-existent. After the beta week end the class was completely guttered making it a long drag which is virtually unplayable which takes out alot of the promised new play styles promised.
    - Everything is now a grind. Everything is time gated which turns what was a fun game into an endless grind.
    - There are many issues with the new classes, notably over power and/or severely over nerfed classes which bring along many issues where classes are deemed "unplayable" or classes which clearly need to be changed.
    - Dev response. There has been many beta weekends which occurred prior to the release of the game for the sole purpose of community feed back and testing. From the implementation of the new expansion it seems that very little of the feedback was actually reviewed which unfortunately resulted in the overnerfing of one of the key selling points of the game.
    - The game currently lacks any end game content and the new expansion does not improve upon this.

    For 50$ your hard earned cash is better off elsewhere for such little addition to the game. If you are a gw2 player you're planning on buying the expansion I would hold off until many of the glaring mechanics are fixed and addressed.
    The expansion isnt bad as it does expand on a great game however for the price you're paying you would expect a much more well rounded game and much more legitimate content.    … Expand
  45. writetyper
    Oct 25, 2015
    4
    Anet bringing the bittersweet changes as usual - amazingly fleshed out and beautiful zones filled with iffy stories and incredibly questionable design decisions.

    The negative: Heart of Thorns completely backflips on the "we don't want people to grind in Guild Wars 2" manifesto which has already had more backflips than Nitro Circus. HoT's PvE is a lot of grind. Grind to complete the    Anet bringing the bittersweet changes as usual - amazingly fleshed out and beautiful zones filled with iffy stories and incredibly questionable design decisions.

    The negative: Heart of Thorns completely backflips on the "we don't want people to grind in Guild Wars 2" manifesto which has already had more backflips than Nitro Circus. HoT's PvE is a lot of grind. Grind to complete the story, grind to get masteries, grind to unlock specs, etc etc etc. It's not really content, it's just pretending to be because grind is easy to make for a developer and stretches out the gameplay. We could all do without it being compulsary to continue in the game I paid full new release game to play.

    Another thing: HoT brings GW2 firmly into the P2W zone. Core game owners and F2P'ers need to buy HoT to keep up with the new elite specs as well as obtaining benefits from masteries like a free revive in fractals and the ability to actually open fractal reward chests, among other things. Nerfs to dungeons (a revenue source for F2P players)? I thought NCSoft split from Nexon? Apparently not...

    As always with GW2 though, the world design team is absolutely on point and the maguuma jungle and it's denizens are beautifully designed and it's nice that open world PvE is actually approaching something akin to difficulty.

    Stronghold is quite bad. More PvE than PvP. Also P2W elements due to the masteries and HoT required to unlock heroes which are pretty plainly stronger than the default.

    Hopefully raids are entertaining. If so, this review might be updated to be higher.    … Expand
  46. syreenorder
    Oct 25, 2015
    1
    As someone who has played GW2 since shortly after it's release, I'm sad to say how disappointed I am with the Heart of Thorns expansion. I always loved this game as it felt so open towards the casual player and made everything about the experience and not some boring grind. With this new expansion, that has all completely changed. Anet advertised the expansion that you would have allAs someone who has played GW2 since shortly after it's release, I'm sad to say how disappointed I am with the Heart of Thorns expansion. I always loved this game as it felt so open towards the casual player and made everything about the experience and not some boring grind. With this new expansion, that has all completely changed. Anet advertised the expansion that you would have all these new skills to use for your character but in truth, you have to do a terribly long grind in order to access them. To me, this expansion has killed the game and completely gone away from what it once was.… Expand
  47. Phoenix4th
    Oct 25, 2015
    1
    GW2 right now is in its grindiest form. However it isn't always about how much you have to grind - farm but how do they force you/shape you to do it.

    The Masteries/Specializations on its current form is a complete failure. The expansion is on its prime and logically it should have many people on the new maps but it doesn't , the 4 new maps are either semi-empty or they have people but    GW2 right now is in its grindiest form. However it isn't always about how much you have to grind - farm but how do they force you/shape you to do it.

    The Masteries/Specializations on its current form is a complete failure. The expansion is on its prime and logically it should have many people on the new maps but it doesn't , the 4 new maps are either semi-empty or they have people but half of the events fail for various reasons

    -Bad scaling
    -Many events at the same time
    -Lack of people
    -No motivation
    -Forced grinding

    You are given a rich map in terms of level design and art but it has so many interactive objects with which... you can't interact. Unless you have the X/Y unknown mastery which you were never told about it nor you will need it elsewhere

    You need a Mastery which takes super long to exp it to something basic such as gather a plant.

    Like , this game was a pioneer in terms of freedom and with HoT they went the Korean way and put artificial barriers between progress and fun.

    To be honest there are many negatives aspects i could mention but i would surpass the 5.000 characters limit and i'm trying to contain myself.

    Then you are on the 3rd day of the expansion and the new map has 3 people on the main chain event you know that something is up. When Guilds on WvWvW which are enemies make deals to KTrain to farm the Specialization (to avoid PvE) you know that something is up.

    When people avoid the new content and just spam CoF P1 only to farm their Kryta Masteries... its just wrong.

    Also for the first time in GW2 there are Hero Points , aspects of the game in open world which you can't solo and they don't scale. You are alone ? Its a champion with 4 adds. You are with 5 people ? Its a champion with similar stats and 4 adds.

    Meanwhile in old GW2 the boss would change rank depending on how many people it has nearby (would go from Veteran to Champion)

    Personally i barely found people to duo some Hero Points , i can imagine that will happen in about a month in which most people will have done those and newcomers won't , and they won't be able to solo them.

    Begging for assistance for such basic stuff ? Going the Korea way.    … Expand
  48. mirta000
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    The grindyest that Guild Wars 2 has ever been!
    Hey, ever wanted to buy a game, where instead of doing quests, or progressing the storyline, you're stuck either killing enemies repeatedly, or doing the same 3 events over and over and over and over again? Well you're in luck as this is Guild Wars 2 right now!
    They literally reduced the game into a state of a Korean Grinder. You need all    The grindyest that Guild Wars 2 has ever been!
    Hey, ever wanted to buy a game, where instead of doing quests, or progressing the storyline, you're stuck either killing enemies repeatedly, or doing the same 3 events over and over and over and over again? Well you're in luck as this is Guild Wars 2 right now!

    They literally reduced the game into a state of a Korean Grinder. You need all of your masteries unlocked to get elite specialization and to be able to finish the story, events give you 4 000 exp, you need 19 million for the last tier. You can't grind said exp in other zones either as it's tied to the Maguuma jungle.

    TL:DR tiny maps, lots of grind, sucks the enjoynment right out of this one.    … Expand
  49. Oxide07
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    With a highly polarized approach too additional content via its use of living story, this expansion is an official clear cut world building and game design attempt to reinvigorate the fans and bring back the old and bring in the new.

    In a lot of ways Anets work has payed off, but there is a reason why I cannot advice the game passing the half way barrier. Anet's design philosophy has    With a highly polarized approach too additional content via its use of living story, this expansion is an official clear cut world building and game design attempt to reinvigorate the fans and bring back the old and bring in the new.

    In a lot of ways Anets work has payed off, but there is a reason why I cannot advice the game passing the half way barrier.
    Anet's design philosophy has always catered around systems that help more casual time players enjoy a fulfilling experience. Unfortunately they have progressively turned towards grinding systems that still feature lack luster rewards as the original launch title suffered.

    Lacking in variety of end game stats, you would think Anet would cater on expanding further with armor set variety, especially with the introduction of new specializations. Unfortunately it is only another measly teaser, and once again the strengths of an mmorpg of it's type seems to be restricted on the player.

    It's unnerving the lore butchering GW2 has taken, the new plot is a better attempt yet still suffers from uninspiring events and awful pacing. If the characters didn't win you over the first time, there will be nothing of offer in this installment.

    While GW1 expansions progressively extended the features at each expansion, their timing and content was superb.. yet despite the work put into GW2, it feels lackluster and too late, especially with the current effort required to enjoy the new content.
    And that is where the game has crumbled, it's effort, not an adventure or experience. The direction the franchise has taken appears to be an irredeemable mess. A great patch, but not deserving of the time for people to come back.    … Expand
  50. Columba
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    This is a horrible expansion. Ranger pets require 6+ hours sitting and waiting for spawns. The zones are nearly impossible to cross. They wrecked wvw with tons of pve gimmicks. If you hate pve, you are forced to endure hours of buggy pve to compete in pvp or wvw. Horrible expansion.
  51. DavidDean
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    This expansion does one thing right, great looking environments. Unfortunately it doesn't take long to see the weaknesses and the lack of content locked behind heavy time gates.

    This expansion seems rushed and incomplete and I'd go as far as to say not worth the initial price at all.
  52. chaos7x
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    I've been a diehard fan of the Guild Wars series for 9 years. Unfortunately this expansion made me just want to uninstall the game and never look back. ANet said they wanted to focus on fractals in the expansion as end game and they were abandoning dungeons. Okay, maybe the new fractals will be fun, I thought. And then it t urns out there aren't *any* new fractals... In a $50I've been a diehard fan of the Guild Wars series for 9 years. Unfortunately this expansion made me just want to uninstall the game and never look back. ANet said they wanted to focus on fractals in the expansion as end game and they were abandoning dungeons. Okay, maybe the new fractals will be fun, I thought. And then it t urns out there aren't *any* new fractals... In a $50 expansion? No actual new content for half of the endgame? You can't just throw a couple zeros on the enemies' hp bars and power stats and call it an expansion. ಠ_ಠ

    Maybe the raids will be able to redeem it, but they aren't even fully in the game yet? That seems like the sort of thing that should've been ready before launching. Furthermore, I have pretty grim hopes for them considering how badly combat in GW2 scales once your party has more than 5 people. It takes all the fun away. All in all, Heart of Thorns marks a huge disappointment and an embarrassment to the Guild Wars franchise. My friends wanted to be raiding and doing new fractals on day 1, instead they're sitting in the old dungeons repeating repeatable events to grind experience... this is exactly the kind of hogwash that the Guild Wars franchise sought to oppose 9 years ago, and it seems they've become the very thing they used to be the exception to. Good night, sweet prince.    … Expand
  53. Sir_Appleby
    Oct 25, 2015
    1
    Lots of hype, but everything promised is not there. No content, just gated waypoints/traits really. And locked Fractals behind a paywall. It's a mssive grind in order to reach a level where you get to grind for masteries to grind for more... etc
  54. Xit
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Let's start out by saying I've loved GW2 for a very long time. That being said, as other users have mentioned, GW2 has taken an extreme 180 to what it once was. Before it felt rewarding for doing dungeons, fractals, and most PvE content. Whether it was fun or not is up for you to decide. You also used to get to play at your own pace, level and gain income how you want. Now after the mostLet's start out by saying I've loved GW2 for a very long time. That being said, as other users have mentioned, GW2 has taken an extreme 180 to what it once was. Before it felt rewarding for doing dungeons, fractals, and most PvE content. Whether it was fun or not is up for you to decide. You also used to get to play at your own pace, level and gain income how you want. Now after the most recent patch, they made it as grindy as possible and pretty much stripped that freedom away. No reason to do dungeons or fractals anymore. Users are now forced to run PvE events just to be able to unlock specs that we paid good $ for. I don't want to be spoon fed by any means but sticking the specs behind a huge grindwall is just disgusting to me. Not to mention the fact that they removed almost all effective ways to earn gold by nerfing dungeon rewards by 66%. They also promised a "new and improved" fractal system. There is nothing "new or improved" about these fractals. They added exactly 0 new fractals, removed all the rewards from them AND added a huge gold sink for players who want to receive any worthwhile loot. Also, they screwed over F2P players but that a whole different topic entirely. Overall I was disappointed by the lack of new content and the direction the game is going. Don't believe people who say this is not a grind fest. They are most likely people who played GW2 before the expansion and ran world events all day every day. Can that be fun? Yes, to some people. Are they fun when you are forced to do them to progress in the game that you paid money for? I don't think so but some might like it.… Expand
  55. blorfman
    Oct 25, 2015
    1
    Terrible expansion, seriously. ANet has managed to replace "fun" with "grindy and frustrating". Before HoT launched, they promised "challenging content." The biggest challenge is staying logged on long enough to play the game for a few minutes. It's that bad. Buyer beware...
  56. saniok
    Oct 25, 2015
    1
    This isn't a joke guys. Think critically like consumers.

    I used to love this game and was very excited about it on the day of release. Now two days have passed and I feel like I’ve done nothing but waste my time. The new content is unengaging, grindy and gated. Instead of having the players get their elites through fun quests, treasure hunting and story, Arenanet thought grinding    This isn't a joke guys. Think critically like consumers.

    I used to love this game and was very excited about it on the day of release. Now two days have passed and I feel like I’ve done nothing but waste my time. The new content is unengaging, grindy and gated. Instead of having the players get their elites through fun quests, treasure hunting and story, Arenanet thought grinding masteries was a better way

    Things like this make people learn to avoid pre-purcheases. If you keep letting Developers do what they want with poor choises that affect players and still get our money they will keep doing it, the only way that player has to raise voices is with our wallets. Think for the sake of yourself using the product and leaving with a pleased sense of interest.

    One of the people I've met tried to go through support attempting a refund. ArenaNet will tell you that they will disable your account access in general if you do; your entire account will now held behind that $50 paywall.

    I hope you can make the best choices for yourself and make sure the marketers know what YOU want before diving in with wallets and enthusiasm blazing.    … Expand
  57. xcenic
    Oct 25, 2015
    1
    this game is no more for casual player, the grindfest its over 9000. Spended whole weekend and i dont feel like completing anything more than. every step i do i found myself blocked by a need to grind point.
  58. Dougie99
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    This expac should have been called Grind Wars. It is ridiculously bad. I would heartily recommend people DO NOT waste your money of this unless you wish to grind grind grind until your fingers bleed, become infected and fall off - Note this may actually be preferably to playing the game
  59. ashikniaz
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Guild wars 2 heart of thrones was the long awaited expansion, that was supposed to expand the world and expand on a system that was honestly lacking. What we got instead was a minimal amount of maps, that have been filled with unnecessary grind.
  60. MarkAttica
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    The expansion is so limited and shallow that it begs the tough questions. What exactly has anet been doing for the past year and a half? And more importantly how could they just take my 50 bucks and deliver nothing in return?

    I feel robbed by a company that promised an expansion with specializations, essentially new versions of the old classes that you could play from day one. As it    The expansion is so limited and shallow that it begs the tough questions. What exactly has anet been doing for the past year and a half? And more importantly how could they just take my 50 bucks and deliver nothing in return?

    I feel robbed by a company that promised an expansion with specializations, essentially new versions of the old classes that you could play from day one. As it turns out they are playable but only after a 60 hour grind through the hellish jumping puzzles anet calls a map. An utter ripoff and a damn shame thats all this expansion is. Do not buy this.    … Expand
  61. stevebmbsqd
    Oct 24, 2015
    1
    Grind, grind, grind... This game is now the antithesis of what Anet had promised. Raids are inbound, content is gated, and there are huge time sinks intentionally inserted into the game play making it an obscene grind.
  62. MrSeagull
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    They took the idea of 'play your own way' and decided that they didn't want you to do that for this expansion. For example the mastery system they introduced to gate progression through the new maps and story line, requires multiple hours of grinding exclusively in the new maps. The new specializations that were used to hype and promote the expansion... require hours upon hours to unlock,They took the idea of 'play your own way' and decided that they didn't want you to do that for this expansion. For example the mastery system they introduced to gate progression through the new maps and story line, requires multiple hours of grinding exclusively in the new maps. The new specializations that were used to hype and promote the expansion... require hours upon hours to unlock, the real biter though is that the quickest way to unlock these new class functionalities is to complete the entire expansion. At which point you're back to grinding pre-expansion content to 'enjoy' these new class functions.

    Simply put, a flawed, deeply deeply flawed, expansion pack.    … Expand
  63. djz3r08
    Oct 25, 2015
    1
    Worst exp I have ever played since GW1 released. Grinding like some kind of Asian games. Farmed the same event for 5 times to unlock the next step in the main story quest. I cannot play for more than 20 minutes - so boring, and frustrated
  64. sng
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    same thing as all other reviews. Grindfest. I have to run the same circuit of events over and over to gain masteries to progress the story. Hero points required to progress your elite specialization mostly can't be soloable, you have to be lucky and end up in a map that isn't empty and with people who are willing to help you kill the champion elite mobs.
  65. Savoyah
    Oct 25, 2015
    1
    Such a bad expansion, fun's on a scale of 0.5 to none. Really grindy new content and ArenaNet doesn't listen to player feedback. The new rewards are junk and a really big pile of mess. It’s very frustrating, boring, grindy and gated, money you gotta pay. Also if they call undodgeable and unblockable attacks "challenging content" then I won't be back for a while.

    I should have gone with    Such a bad expansion, fun's on a scale of 0.5 to none. Really grindy new content and ArenaNet doesn't listen to player feedback. The new rewards are junk and a really big pile of mess. It’s very frustrating, boring, grindy and gated, money you gotta pay. Also if they call undodgeable and unblockable attacks "challenging content" then I won't be back for a while.

    I should have gone with my gut and ignored the hype. Since I bought the game 1.5 years ago, now it became free to play. Tells you something about the company after it disregards your investments. Weekend after launch, their staff was on forums silencing negative, most of the times constructively helpful feedback.Be warned, if you order the expansion and apply to support for a refund, your account gets erased.    … Expand
  66. Coryisthebomb
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    This review is addressing the fact that Guild Wars2: Heart of Thorns is not and should never be referred to as an expansion...... this title was the marketing method which the game's creator, Arenanet, used to trick players into buying their way past a paywall.

    Purchasing this title enables you to play the core game at the level of everyone else who paid to play the game, while choosing    This review is addressing the fact that Guild Wars2: Heart of Thorns is not and should never be referred to as an expansion...... this title was the marketing method which the game's creator, Arenanet, used to trick players into buying their way past a paywall.

    Purchasing this title enables you to play the core game at the level of everyone else who paid to play the game, while choosing not to purchase severely cripples your abilities as a player, whether or not you bought the game at launch, or picked up the game completely for free.

    There is minimal content in this title that is not found in the core/free to play version of the game, and its most boasted features are a glorified list of chores that require hundreds of hours of grinding to complete, (complete with gating) in order to achieve an "expansion sized" number of gameplay hours.

    Players who purchased Heart of Thorns will find themselves laboriously grinding in order to complete chores in new as well as areas of the game that have been stale for over two years in order to achieve any sense of progression.

    This title is the definition of horrible business ethics.
    Arenanet blatantly lied about what players would be purchasing in order to suck as much money as possible from their loyal fans who supported Guild Wars 2 since launch before catering to their new free to play churn and burn playerbase.

    The entire thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I am honestly and truly insulted.
    I have been a loyal fan of Arenanet since Guild Wars 1, and I would not recommend picking up this title unless you have never played the core game, because you will not get much more than the core game if you are looking for an expansion.    … Expand
  67. Harveen
    Oct 27, 2015
    0
    Lacks content. Boring Grinds. Few skins, but they make time to put day 1 skins in their gem store!

    Only thing I like about this game is the map design, other than that I'd avoid.

    Fallout 4 is out soon, going to refund this and grab that instead. Do no buy!
  68. papryk
    Oct 26, 2015
    2
    Heart of Grind......also raids, squad system and new legendarys to be added "later".... like 2 years wasn't enough for that xD
    Anet is a joke. Greed all the way...
  69. szspagna
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    If you like dynamic events, the expansion is for you.

    If you hate this braindead open world pve activity, the expansion has nothing for you. They nerfed dungeon and fractal rewards to hell. They gated fractal rewards behind keys that you have to buy with gold to get RNG returns. You cannot level masteries with instanced PvE content, so you must farm "dynamic" (oh, the irony)    If you like dynamic events, the expansion is for you.

    If you hate this braindead open world pve activity, the expansion has nothing for you.

    They nerfed dungeon and fractal rewards to hell. They gated fractal rewards behind keys that you have to buy with gold to get RNG returns.

    You cannot level masteries with instanced PvE content, so you must farm "dynamic" (oh, the irony) events for countless hours to progress in masteries.

    The elite specs are locked behind 400 points, which means your world completion in the game meant nothing. You'll only unlock up to adept traits IF you did world completion. If you didn't, get ready to play a handicapped elite spec for a while.

    For those very 20-40 hero challenges you need to do in the jungle, many of them are gated behind mastery level requirements to access (so gotta grind those dynamic events for hours).

    On top of that, they had the retarded idea of placing champions that can one shot anything that isn't a necro/warrior.

    You will not be able to solo most hero challenges in heart of thorns. Some hero challenges don't involve a ridiculously broken champion, instead they involve a point surrounded by several veteran level HP sponge ranged mobs who attack from range for a third to half your health, stun you to death in melee, and if you try to range them to not get stunned to death in melee, they also randomly evade ranged attacks.

    Needless to say, this expansion is a complete departure from Guild Wars 1 philosophy of no grind.

    Massive goldsinks were also created. To salvage all those ascended rings you got from fractals, each salvage costs 1 gold. A salvage kit costs 20 gold in a game with no meaningful liquid gold gain since they nerfed dungeon rewards to hell (and even then a complete dungeon tour WAS 20 gold).

    They also made ascended armor even more expensive to make, by not only making it require bolts of damask, but elonian leather too.

    Basically, they increased all goldsinks to ridiculous levels, nerfed gold gain in the game, so you are pressured to buy gems with real money to convert to gold, or face farming unholy hours.

    The only good thing about this expansion is the story missions and maybe the raids.    … Expand
  70. phrost
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    One of the greatest things about the original GW2 was the freedom to play the way you want to play.
    Want to level all of your characters to max potential doing nothing but playing sPvP or WvW?
    Totally works. That was until HoT and the infinite series of time / experience / gold gates stepped in. The biggest selling point of HoT was unlocking elite specs ("class-within-a-class") for    One of the greatest things about the original GW2 was the freedom to play the way you want to play.
    Want to level all of your characters to max potential doing nothing but playing sPvP or WvW?
    Totally works.
    That was until HoT and the infinite series of time / experience / gold gates stepped in.

    The biggest selling point of HoT was unlocking elite specs ("class-within-a-class") for all characters.
    If you leveled up via WvW/sPvP before and don't have 100% map completion- you're in for a world of hurt.
    ~36 hours of EoTM grinding in (with 100% wxp birthday booster + 50% wxp converted boosters) I've only managed to unlock 40% of the tempest elite spec for a single max level character.
    That's just less than an hour of WvW per percentage point unlock.
    ~100 hours per level 80 to fully unlock an elite spec line via EoTM thanks to a massive EoTM nerf that was released as part of HoT.

    Of course you could try PvE and grind masteries/hero points there- all of the PvE sympathizers will tell you that this content is challenging and challenging content good for the game overall.
    I ask how is a time gate challenging? Just because it takes a significant amount of time that makes it a worthy reward?

    Doing PvE you'll simply run around, find hero points, and spend 15-20 minutes clearing veteran mobs to a hero point.
    Only then will the hero challenge mob yell "You are not worthy, I will not fight you" for you have not yet spent time grinding up masteries to unlock the required language / culture level.
    Challenging content for sure- it just requires randomly facerolling enough events to grind a metric ton of XP.
    Rewarding? Not really.
    I guess the time sink spent cleaning my apartment must be epic content by the same definition.

    Then PvP- there are a ton of new runes / sigils / mist champion reward tracks added- but they all cost 15g a pop.
    Sure PvP can be open, instantly unlocked, and competitive, if you convert enough gems in to gold first.
    Since when did everything become gold locked in PvP? New strategy?
    Maybe if we're lucky in a few weeks we can buy hero points with gems.

    All in all the expansion isn't horrible except for the points above- the graphics are amazing, the level design would be awesome if it wasn't for the broken mechanics and the fact it's almost impossible to navigate successfully.
    The events / open world boss fights are epic and actually challenging (note for PvE guys: really challenging as in actual mechanics here- not just time gate challenging that you all seem to idolize).

    For me the expansion just lacks... something.. what's it called... fun.
    Pretty bad when you'd rather do almost anything else than login on launch weekend for a new title.    … Expand
  71. Taynore
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Heart of Thorns? More like Heart of Grind. Everything is gated by either xp or hero point grind. Don't feel like I've got my money's worth in the expansion. And all of this was followed up by cripling economical nerf to my favorite core game content - dungeons.
  72. dreiji
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    as someone who mainly runned dungeons and fractals, the changes they made killed what i do in this game. and i bought the 100$ edition to support them, now i regret wasting my money.
  73. DiscoJacen
    Oct 26, 2015
    4
    Some really cool features, but way too many shortcuts taken...
    The mastery system is just a simple xp grind and just serves has a way to hinder your progression in the main story.
    Special masteries that were presented like "unique" (I'm looking at you Pact Mentor) are nothing more than just "get xp in the regular game". The story is cheap and would pass if it didn"'t try to shove in as    Some really cool features, but way too many shortcuts taken...
    The mastery system is just a simple xp grind and just serves has a way to hinder your progression in the main story.
    Special masteries that were presented like "unique" (I'm looking at you Pact Mentor) are nothing more than just "get xp in the regular game".
    The story is cheap and would pass if it didn"'t try to shove in as much social acceptance as possible.

    The elite specializations are cool but once again hidden behind a grindwall if you want to unlock them with hero points (unlike spvp who has them unlocked because #esportz...).
    Which is funny because WvW players STILL have to do the pve grind to get the elite specs....

    Some redeemable features like guild halls.
    Fighting in the jungle is satisfying and can be a real challenge.
    Once you unlock the glider it's a real pleasure to glide around.

    In the end had it been a 20 dollar expansion I'd have said "no problem". But for the price of a full game (even more for ppl who paid for the bigger packs) you just CAN'T release something with so many lazy shortcuts to avoid having to make intermediary missions or quests.    … Expand
  74. lippy77
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    Too much grind elite spec need too much points points loked on masterys is just a bad design exp arena net promise o no grind game but they give you a grind fest much of the new content is not soloable also what is just salt to the injury.
  75. Intox
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    My experience with HoT can be summed up as frustrating.
    The story is gated behind various masteries to artificially extend it.
    As for the story it was average, ending feels underwhelming and leaves me thinking "is that it?" It gave the impression of do these things you may not enjoy to access the stuff you might enjoy. That is exactly how I felt about finally completing the story,    My experience with HoT can be summed up as frustrating.
    The story is gated behind various masteries to artificially extend it.

    As for the story it was average, ending feels underwhelming and leaves me thinking "is that it?"

    It gave the impression of do these things you may not enjoy to access the stuff you might enjoy.
    That is exactly how I felt about finally completing the story, I had to do a lot of not fun things to level a mastery required at each step of the story.

    Did not finish the unlock on my elite spec as it takes an extreme amount of hero points to unlock.
    Lost a lot of replay value for me since I have no desire to grind hero points for elite specs for every character, any alts I would like to play will face the same wall that my first character did.

    When I first bought GW2 I loved the play your way design they did and that has now changed.
    Definitely a big downgrade to me from the original game, I had more fun before this expansion released.    … Expand
  76. kennyljs
    Oct 26, 2015
    4
    Mediocre. I wonder if the reviewers that gave it 10/10 even played the game at all. They gated off the expansion pack so that you need to grind for mastery so that you can progress through the map. In the core game, you could get to whatever area you want to go without any restrictions. The only problem is that the level 80 mobs will one hit KO your level 2 character in a level 80 area.Mediocre. I wonder if the reviewers that gave it 10/10 even played the game at all. They gated off the expansion pack so that you need to grind for mastery so that you can progress through the map. In the core game, you could get to whatever area you want to go without any restrictions. The only problem is that the level 80 mobs will one hit KO your level 2 character in a level 80 area. But that is how open the core game is. This expansion build huge walls around the map that you need to break down before you can progress. Yes, the graphics are stunning. The game play is smooth. Some bugs here and there, but not game breaking. The only thing standing in your way if you want to open the maps is that huge wall. A wall too huge for many players. The elites can go kitten off!… Expand
  77. DeathsPeak
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    Waste of money, even the free content like the changes to wvw were terrible.Thumbs up on killing wvw Arenanet, theres barely anyone even on and the map is just too big and dumb.. Its wvw not pve -.-
  78. Mortum1
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    Why so low? Welli played this game for about 1,000 hours, i got my money worth back many many times, but the HoTs expansion is a very grindy type of content, tehre is some fun here and there with fantastic visuals and music, but its core design is around grinding XP for masteries, something that sounded good in theory but the way it is implemented ended feeling nothing more than justWhy so low? Welli played this game for about 1,000 hours, i got my money worth back many many times, but the HoTs expansion is a very grindy type of content, tehre is some fun here and there with fantastic visuals and music, but its core design is around grinding XP for masteries, something that sounded good in theory but the way it is implemented ended feeling nothing more than just another MMO expac that you have to grind endless levels to get to the good stuff. Its not fun and its not , as always with Anet, rewarding!… Expand
  79. Badspazz
    Nov 22, 2015
    0
    This game has went hardcore. IF you want a fun mmo play wow. this game is **** full of failed events and failed everything. If you are a loser perfect gamer you should play this. If you are not a 15 hour a day gamer pick another game.
  80. dwms1188
    Oct 26, 2015
    3
    I had to make an account to express my disappointment for this game. There was so much hype for an expansion after 3 long years of little content or fixes and honestly I was very much looking forward to it.

    What we got however was typical Arena Net response. I can't find a single part of this expansion where they listened to any Living Story, WvW or Fractal feedback they received. Want    I had to make an account to express my disappointment for this game. There was so much hype for an expansion after 3 long years of little content or fixes and honestly I was very much looking forward to it.

    What we got however was typical Arena Net response. I can't find a single part of this expansion where they listened to any Living Story, WvW or Fractal feedback they received. Want to play with a small group? Better hope people come around for the champs your elite specialization (see: Their primary selling point) are gated behind. Want to get the Hero Points that can be solo'd? You guessed it, a Mastery gate. Some Hero Points requiring max masteries (16 million exp).

    There are 4 maps. The events on the maps are not fun. You run in a circle for 16 mil experience then do it another 4 times. I'm sure raids will require high level masteries because its their only content they brought into this game. You're paying $50 for 1/3 game play and the other 2/3 time gating.

    But its an expansion you say, go back to the regular game if you don't like it? Too bad they castrated that in the process. It wasn't enough to make their fruits of their labor annoying, they ruined their quite stable and still maintaining base game by making the only money attainable in the new zones. Upped Fractal rewards? Only if you get the mastery.

    New WvW maps do nothing but highlight the disconnect between whatever bastardized team if handling that now and what actual players want.

    Skip this heaping pile of **** for a month. If Anet pulls its head from their asses and makes some fixes maybe it will be worth it. I'm getting a refund.    … Expand
  81. Zakooon
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    I'm done. What a waste, avoid at all costs or at least until it's at least half price. Little content, max grind.

    My guild is already dead less than a week into this game, refunds are available though which is my only positive.
  82. Leppi
    Oct 30, 2015
    0
    I really can't imagine where all these positive reviews come from.

    First off this isn't even an "expansion". If you hear Guild Wars Expansion you think Factions or Nightfall or even Eye of the North with new continents, big areas to explore and new foes to beat. They used to be around 25-35 bucks depending on your currency and featured nice and thoughtout storys with interesting    I really can't imagine where all these positive reviews come from.

    First off this isn't even an "expansion". If you hear Guild Wars Expansion you think Factions or Nightfall or even Eye of the North with new continents, big areas to explore and new foes to beat.
    They used to be around 25-35 bucks depending on your currency and featured nice and thoughtout storys with interesting charakters and gorgeous places to explore.

    This is not that at all. All this is is the next chapter of the living story, continued just like they ended. A truckload of boring and annoying farmheavy Metaevents and alltogether rather uninspired Content.
    Tons of reused foes and assets and really nothing refreshing.
    This is sadly anything but that. You can basically beat the "Story" in about ~4 hours and you keep getting interrupted by annoying grinds just so you can level up some gimicky skill so you can progress.

    Anything ANet said about this "expansion" was a lie. The verticallity is more of an annoyance and it doesn't really have the depth they claimed it would have.
    They said you don't need to grind new levels before you can experience the content?
    Well you don't level further than lvl80 but you need to level up your mastery in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY just to get to use some gimmicky feature so you can advance.

    The story is hella predictable and feels incredibly rushed. They were even too lazy to make a final fight vs an actual dragon so they just pulled some reasons for it out of their ass, rushed half the story while they just stomped any potential they build up in the first few missions into the ground and provide you with one of the most bugged final missions I have come accross in any Guild Wars game so far.

    If you are new and are only playing GW2 because it is now free to play, enjoy the base game, there is nothing incredibly interesting or important to find here. I really can't recommend this thing to anyone.

    If you are a diehard Guild Wars fan and you desperately want this I would still suggest to you that you do wait as long as possible for the price to drop, the state this is in it's really not worth a nearly full priced release. Maybe if they continue the living story properly in this or if they add some actual content other than annoying metaevents it might get better but so far nothing in this justifys the pricetag it has.    … Expand
  83. pessimist93
    Oct 27, 2015
    0
    positive things:
    - new professions
    - several new and beautiful made areas - for the most part a well made story atmosphere (at least the parts I have seen until now since I simply dont have the power anymore to restart a mission for the 14. time because its still bugging after several patches) - precursor hunt, finally I dont need to farm for hundred of hours now to get my legendary    positive things:
    - new professions
    - several new and beautiful made areas
    - for the most part a well made story atmosphere (at least the parts I have seen until now since I simply dont have the power anymore to restart a mission for the 14. time because its still bugging after several patches)
    - precursor hunt, finally I dont need to farm for hundred of hours now to get my legendary

    negative things:
    - bugs, and I dont mean the enemy NPCs.
    Bugs are not that much of a problem if its just minor things like some unimportant events are stucked, animation are not working properly. But Anet has managed again to bug some of the most vital parts of the expansion. "You are organizing a map and try to kill the last bosses? Too bad cause the last bosses are **** bugged and as a result nobody gets **** and some worthless trash for the 2h he spent actually trying to play in a team and be productive. If 1 of the bosses would be bugged, fine its been only several days after release. But all 5 of them????? Oh and dont even get me started about the bugs in the story quests. Little example: in 1 of the quests you have to follow a trail and pick up rocks. But to make things harder this quest tends to bug out at every possible spot. You got into combat? Retry! You clicked the rock 1 time too much? Retry! You found the rock too fast? Retry! You moved while you character was talking to himself? Retry!
    Hell it feels like I bought some kind of half finished product and the only things thats actually working properly is the gemshop.

    - grind, the thing most player hates most.
    Grind was always present in GW2 but this has become worse than everyone has feared. You want to continue to the 2. story mission? You have to grind for hours to unlock the 1. mastery! and when you finished the 3. mission you have to grind again to get another mastery. and this continues until the end of the story. Anet is trying to artificially extend your playtime with this by forcing you to grind your ass off just to make any progress.
    And the same applies for the new professions. you actually have to clear the entire worldmap and all of the 4 new zones to get all the points to unlock all skills. Too bad that many of the heropoints in the new zones are mastery gated which means hours of grind again just to get 1 **** point. If you want to unlock the new vendors for the new armor skins you have to grind for hours too just too unlock the mastery to talk to them.

    - lack of choice in the story
    There were alot of moments where you wanted to decide differently than your goody good character with a generic personality and the perception of a potato (which would be a insult for potatos since they know that fire burns). Your character is forced into a role you dont want and the only choice you can make is the one between the plague and cholera. You cant think up a option C, you only have A and B which are both stupid. Especially when one of your enemies in a cutscene you are not able to shoot her in the back and you are not able to finish enemies off with a load of lead when they are on the ground.

    - play like you want is gone
    You want to get to this point for your mapcompletion? Well then group up with randoms that are also unwilling like you and do the same events over and over again for hours just to expand the meta event so you cant get up to this point. In 1 of the severe cases you have to form up and organizse hours before just to get a slight chance of winning the event so you can get to one **** point. Also you cant do most **** anymore since you need at least 1 unfortunate soul as a meatshield to complete heropoints or get to vista points. Oh and did I tell you already that many points needs masteries which mean more grind?

    - ugly new armors
    I was hoping for some new fresh armor that didnt look generec and like the janitor did this in his coffee break. Instead we got just that. All 3 new armors look almost completely the same and you are able to unlock it with, guess what, tons of grind. They must have fired all artists that made good lokking armor and not even necessarily the skimpy ones.

    - the price of HoT
    50 bucks for a complete game? Sounds alright, especially if its well made. But 50 bucks for only 4 new zones, bugs, grind, content thats not even out yet and even more grind sounds like you like pain or you were just gullible/stupid to buy that. The whole thing wasnt even worth 30 bucks, 25 top.

    These were just a few of the negative points of the game and since I slowly run out of characters to write (5000), I will try to warn those who are thinking about to get HoT.

    If you loved GW2 with its open world and play like you want philosophy:
    Stay away!!!
    The wohle thing is a dead end grinding torture which makes many Asia Grinder look like a walk in the park. Save your money and wait for another good game to come out. GW2 doesnt have much hope left and this ****ty expansion just proved it    … Expand
  84. ltmiroku
    Nov 13, 2016
    4
    the add on does in fact plenty of nice features. but my biggest turn off to this add on has got to be how you are playing the Exact same style of boss monster. when you start the game the first was about a Dragon that rises the dead and controls an army, the next story is about a dragon that raises plant characters that he controls. the dead were once living but controlled, thethe add on does in fact plenty of nice features. but my biggest turn off to this add on has got to be how you are playing the Exact same style of boss monster. when you start the game the first was about a Dragon that rises the dead and controls an army, the next story is about a dragon that raises plant characters that he controls. the dead were once living but controlled, the plants can be of created or a controlled race. The creativity here is Terrible to say the least!!

    Lets not forget the new zones will kill you, i just don't mean you picked a paper class death. i mean dear god you can have high defense and feel as if you are a paper class character. the damage is just to high! and the monsters use plenty of pulls, knockdowns and anything to kill you as often as they can its not creative!

    the maps themselves are very hard and is very confusing at times that you might get lost or frustrated that these high damaging monsters are making it hard to figure out where your at!

    Cash Shops seem to been on the rise with the add on as well, seems if you want another character slot it is 10$ per slot! sound fair to you? i felt ripped off! personally!

    I'm uncertain what Anet was thinking with this add on, but they certainly have created a mess :(    … Expand
  85. onegamer1
    Dec 12, 2015
    4
    tl:dr - HoT is the worst production of ANET's Guild Wars franchise so far. With HoT ANET embraced the repetitive; grindy; gold for cash free to play MMO model. Lack of creative design is evident in an otherwise aesthetically beautiful game.

    HoT is an expansion content of Guild Wars 2 that takes players inside Maguuma jungle. However, in reality, it is basically 4 sets of events on 4    tl:dr - HoT is the worst production of ANET's Guild Wars franchise so far. With HoT ANET embraced the repetitive; grindy; gold for cash free to play MMO model. Lack of creative design is evident in an otherwise aesthetically beautiful game.

    HoT is an expansion content of Guild Wars 2 that takes players inside Maguuma jungle. However, in reality, it is basically 4 sets of events on 4 maps.

    The good:

    10/10 - Art and Aethetics: ANET Artists truly add character to the environment. Tangled Depths is the most beautiful and ambitious map design that I have ever seen in any MMO. It's disorienting, confusing, challenging and beautiful all at the same time. It gives you the feel of entering a jungle, an unknown place where fearful enemies lurk in the shadows. You will lose your way; you will be frustrated, unhappy and probably close the game after a few deaths. Howeever, eventually as you explore and learn the ways of the jungle, you will find how beautifully it's layered. A lot of things are happening in each layer and as an inhabitant of the jungle you will know how to traverse it quickly, safely and without frustration.

    8/10 - Difficulty: ANET abandoned play as you like model of GW2 core game where you can run from a level 1 zone to level 80 final zones wearing basic gear. In this expansion, that is no more the case. Equipment matters. Knowing what skills you have on the skillbar helps and knowing how to use those skills effectively helps even more. Maguuma is a jungle and not a theme park; it's dangerous. You will feel that way when you play HoT. Would you like that feeling? I don't know. But, I think it's realistic.

    The bad:

    2/10 - Meta event system: The event chains, meta events, in Maguuma are quite long. ANET, for some inexplicable reason, wants the playerbase to stay logged in the game for a long time and on the very same map with the same IP address. Participation in the event is logged and tracked for each player. Players are rewarded for longer participation and awarded in small bits at certain stages of event progression with main /final award distributed at the end of the event chain based on player's particiaption in the meta chain. This design makes players vulnerable to inadvertent disconnects losing progression and eventually the final rewards. For example, if a player who was completing one event for last 90 minutes and suddenly gets disconnected, upon logging back that player will lose all contribution to the event if he/she is lucky to get back to the same map instance and start from scratch. In most cases, that player would not be able to get back to the map instance because it would be full if it was an instance where the event was organized.

    1/10 - Gearing for endgame: The endgame of HoT is raid. A minority group of total population play the content because it's hard and arguably pointless from the perspective of current game design of equipment upgrades. Not everyone's lifestyle or skill suits this content. To make things more absurd, you need to spend nearly 1000+ gold just to get the equipment to get ready for this content. It can be argued that one does not need to spend so much gold to do raid. And theoretically, it's true. One can join a group with less than desirable gear only to be replaced promptly with someone who already has the better gear. One can also try to join a guild to raid with less than desirable gear choices. However, finding such a guild in reality and then succeeding in raiding with that guild probably has a lesser chance than winning a decent prize in a state lottery.

    0/10 - Legendary Weapons/skins: There are no legends associated with them except the cost to make one. It was the result of an extremely poor content design that ANET promised to fix in the core game but, kept on dillydallying for 3+ years and never fixed them. With the launch of HoT, ANET made a huge deal about how they changed the existing system to a "journey" to give players content to enjoy while pursuing this "legendary" journey. What they actually did was nothing but taking a bad system and making it worse. In addition to spending 2000+ gold in getting a skin/weapon, the player will have to do chores, sabotage events (for example, if the map population wants to complete an event chain, player on the legendary journey will have to negotiate with all the players on the map to purposefully fail certain number of events to start an event that will reward an item this journeyman can use to progress on his legendary quest), wake up odd hours at night or log on odd hours during day to check if a particular event/NPC is available (in fact that's exactly what I am doing right now on Plains of Ashford while waiting for Siegemaster Lormar event to trigger.. and I am doing that for last 2 days for more than 5+ hours) and, among other nuisances, gather 150000+ material to craft the weapon.

    Please check reddit, google etc. to know what to expect from HoT before spending money and time.    … Expand
  86. themangoose
    Jun 14, 2016
    0
    Not worth the money. They sold us a box of promises, but when we opened it there were only likes. Half of what was promised with the expansion has been cancelled in lieu of more gemstore updates. Raids ruined the game as the only way to get top armor gear now is behind only one game mode. The game has chanced and you're going to hate the community now. They sold out to make all ofNot worth the money. They sold us a box of promises, but when we opened it there were only likes. Half of what was promised with the expansion has been cancelled in lieu of more gemstore updates. Raids ruined the game as the only way to get top armor gear now is behind only one game mode. The game has chanced and you're going to hate the community now. They sold out to make all of the WoW transfers happy. WvW is a joke and they promote match fixing.… Expand
  87. Adrenalin
    Jan 3, 2016
    0
    Cash Grab Wars 2: Heart for Gems - This expansion is nothing but an insult to its playerbase. Way too less new content, dumb destroying of old content (dungeons, wvw, class balancing) and above all, the complete destruction of ingame rewards (especially liquid gold drops) in order to force players to GEMS->GOLD. The whole game is completely pointless these days because everythingCash Grab Wars 2: Heart for Gems - This expansion is nothing but an insult to its playerbase. Way too less new content, dumb destroying of old content (dungeons, wvw, class balancing) and above all, the complete destruction of ingame rewards (especially liquid gold drops) in order to force players to GEMS->GOLD. The whole game is completely pointless these days because everything meaningful gets accomplished faster with a McDonald's job rather than actually playing the game.

    If you compare this with WoW:WoD, WoD introduced stupid browser game stuff with its mission table gameplay-wise; HoT made GW2 a browser game reward-wise. And I'm talking about **** p2w browser games, no quality stuff like CoC.

    This mindless greed of Anet will be the downfall of the company and the game. And that is well justified.    … Expand
  88. TMachine
    Feb 5, 2016
    4
    If you pay attention it becomes clear how A-net is running this business. I don't feel like writing another long wall of text, we've done plenty of those on official forums.
  89. StormageddonBK
    Apr 6, 2016
    0
    I've played since launch and love the game but HoT isn't fun, AT ALL! To play any part of the new content you NEED to grind masteries and only the new classes are competitive.

    HoT changes killed WvW. It has a new laggy PvE filled border lands and you now need to grind outside WvW in PvE to level guild halls for WvW. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in game design and    I've played since launch and love the game but HoT isn't fun, AT ALL! To play any part of the new content you NEED to grind masteries and only the new classes are competitive.

    HoT changes killed WvW. It has a new laggy PvE filled border lands and you now need to grind outside WvW in PvE to level guild halls for WvW. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in game design and totally ruins dedicated WvW play.

    Actually no, I stand corrected, there is something more stupid! They cancelled the new legendary weapons development 6 months after launch (which they advertised and took money for), plus the loooooong awaited WvW update has been delayed and isn't anywhere to be seen. How hard is it to deliver on these 2 sales points that you accepted money for? They now say the legendary team has been re-purposed... seriously!!! What else is going to drop in the future? Oh and they have been developing the next expansion with 70 devs while this expansion suffers!!! OMG. fool me once...never again Anet!    … Expand
  90. Pst
    Jan 10, 2016
    0
    If you take away the bells and whistles of the "mastery system", this "expansion" brings nothing new or innovating to the game. The new maps are terribly designed, expect to spend a lot of time taxiing into an active map. WvW is still neglected, dungeons are pretty much forgotten and the story is very short. I lost interest in HoT 2 weeks into it. The raids do not feel epic whatsoever, itIf you take away the bells and whistles of the "mastery system", this "expansion" brings nothing new or innovating to the game. The new maps are terribly designed, expect to spend a lot of time taxiing into an active map. WvW is still neglected, dungeons are pretty much forgotten and the story is very short. I lost interest in HoT 2 weeks into it. The raids do not feel epic whatsoever, it doesn't feel right without the trinity. I have more negative things to say about this game and company but am feeling too salty to write anymore. I regrettably purchased the ultimate edition. I won't be supporting Anet ever again.… Expand
  91. Patriarch
    Jan 16, 2016
    2
    Hated it. Four maps for full expansion price. Lots of mini-games. Content gated behind masteries. Anet is obviously moving towards "grinding". Each map has its own currency, which clutters up your inventory. Not casual-friendly like the core game. I went back to the core maps before reaching the fourth map.

    The new masteries seem cool, and Revenant is fun to play, but you have to buy a    Hated it. Four maps for full expansion price. Lots of mini-games. Content gated behind masteries. Anet is obviously moving towards "grinding". Each map has its own currency, which clutters up your inventory. Not casual-friendly like the core game. I went back to the core maps before reaching the fourth map.

    The new masteries seem cool, and Revenant is fun to play, but you have to buy a character slot for it separately unless you want to delete one of your characters. I have no idea why Anet thought it would be a good idea to charge $50 for an expansion with a new profession and not include a character slot.

    Overall, it feels like the whole expansion is geared towards gold sinks and time sinks. Any future expansions will be a hard-sell after my intense dislike for this one.

    On a side-note, Anet is already tempering expectations for the new living story (LS3). They said there will be fewer updates, but they will be "richer". they also said they will be splitting their time between LS3 and the next expansion.    … Expand
  92. Woahstrewth
    Jan 25, 2016
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Speaking as someone who has played nearly every game mode and has sunk over 4000 hours into the game I can say that I am pretty well versed in the game. After hearing about Heart of Thorns and the myriad of changes it would bring to the game I was understandably excited. When it launched it seemed to be everything I had hoped for and completely renewed my interest for about a month or so. But as time went on I noticed a strange and bitter taste developing every time I logged on to play, which I was doing less and less. Something was off about it, and the more I thought the more I realized just how much about this expansion I disliked.

    Art and Design: As usual it's top notch, probably the most beautiful MMO I've ever played. SOME (not all) of the new zones are really cool, my personal favorite being the golden city of Tarir and Auric Basin in general. Overall though the four new zones and two new guild halls and raid are just ok in my book. They're each about half the size of the vanilla maps or a bit more and some of them are just kind of dull (Verdant Brink and Dragon's Stand are fairly bland).

    Progression: Ah the Mastery System, where to start. It's essentially Anet's way of putting in end game progression, but I have numerous problems with their implementation. First off, and there's no way of sugar coating it, it is a total grind to get everything, and for very little reward. Everything you are grinding for has nothing to do with stats, or really anything, it just has to with being able to navigate the new zones more easily, or with getting small bonuses in already existing content such as fractals. The new "Legendary Journey" to craft a precursor is a joke, and it's still cheaper in most cases to just outright buy the thing. I was able to finish all central tyria masteries but gave up after I reached Mastery level 89 as I just couldn't be bothered, they gave me no incentive or reason to continue, I could care less about gliding marginally faster in these specific areas.

    The Story: Alot of people are giving the expansion tons of praise for how much better the story it tells is. I have to admit that through the living story Arenanet obviously learned some things about telling more interesting stories. But to be completely honest, though it is leaps and bounds better than the original story quests, I still found it completely laughable at best. The entire thing is over in about two hours barring the required mastery grinds in order to progress, and it does nothing new or interesting with the characters. Not to mention explaining how exactly Canach ended up with us? Also that Vinetooth Faolain thing is **** hilarious to look at and not menacing in the slightest. Compared to other MMOs such as WoW and FF14 the story is entirely mediocre.

    Elite Specs and PvP: Yes, PvP is a complete dumping ground atm, with elite spec metas totally dominating and imbalance rampant. WvW's new borderlands have been rethemed as Deserts, which is entirely fitting because they are almost completely and always empty. Most of the Elite Specs are cool to mess around with and take a bit to unlock but they don't really do much in redeeming the overall expansion.

    Dungeons and Raids: So if there is one thing I really can't complain that much about it's what Anet did to Fractals of the Mists, shortening and streamlining it, making it more accessable, albeit with reduced rewards, but that is symptematic of something even worse. Other than that and the new raid, there is no other new instanced content, not even a single new dungeon. The Raids are also awkward stilted affairs, far too difficult for any casual players to finish but also lacking any true sort of reward or stat upgrade. They get more of a resounding meh.

    My main problem with the game is what the expansion did to instance rewards and rewards in general since the f2p coversion. If you want any hope of keeping up with the "End Game" or really accomplishing anything, you need gold. Gold in the game has always been alot harder to come by than almost any other mmo but now since they neutered the rewards from every dungeon, it is almost mandatory to spend real money and transfer it to gold to get anything done this century in the game. It is incredibly disheartening and just makes you realize the completely shallow nature of the expansion and the game itself in the current state.

    tl;dr Don't waste your money on the game in it's current state, there are mmos out there far more deserving of your time and effort that do what this game tries to do better in almost everyway. Try Heavensward on FF14 or even Warlords of Draenor for WoW over this.    … Expand
  93. Winterice
    Nov 29, 2015
    0
    HoT offers nothing more that grinding group events and it is a long term task. There is no alternative than grinding group events to gain progress and advance a character. Take also into consideration that there is a time schedule attached to the game. What would have been an exciting new game turned into a game with stiff, forced and controlled way to play. Core Guild Wars 2 was a grandHoT offers nothing more that grinding group events and it is a long term task. There is no alternative than grinding group events to gain progress and advance a character. Take also into consideration that there is a time schedule attached to the game. What would have been an exciting new game turned into a game with stiff, forced and controlled way to play. Core Guild Wars 2 was a grand game. HoT is nothing and feels only petty.… Expand
  94. Exfan
    Mar 25, 2016
    1
    How to ruin decent game:
    1. New dailies less to choose from in pve content wise same areas repeating event side, usually daily fractals and certain level ones so its like 2/5 usually filled with these and always 1 world boss you could actually wait 1h to 30 mins to get daily boss done. Pve content and group pve content should be 2 separate things and for **** sake more choices.
    2. New    How to ruin decent game:
    1. New dailies less to choose from in pve content wise same areas repeating event side, usually daily fractals and certain level ones so its like 2/5 usually filled with these and always 1 world boss you could actually wait 1h to 30 mins to get daily boss done. Pve content and group pve content should be 2 separate things and for **** sake more choices.
    2. New mastery system forced content must do storyline, must own, buy and must get certain achievement while doing storyline if not your character progress just stops until you advance in storyline to get enough mastery points so you are forced play game certain way.
    3. New classes some are just lame some are just overpowered. New class revenant is just grind skill points to open each stance and open all skills in each stance. There ain't lot of customization because skills require certain stance to use perhaps most boring class to play. As for other classes game is just skillpoint grind fest need 30 open weapon for profession and of course you need to use almost empty skill three to use weapon.
    Perhaps they have started fix these things but haven't been bothered to play game is not for casuals anymore it is becoming just like wow boring and old no life grindfest. Sadly i am casual and proud of it.    … Expand
  95. UPRC
    Jan 10, 2016
    1
    I'd give it something higher than a 1/10, maybe even a passing grade, if I could progress past the start. I simply can't. I've died over 20 times since stepping foot into the first new zone and trying to do the first story mission. I had no problems in this game before the expansion, and I'm leveling a revenant without any problems... so why is it so hard now? I literally can't progressI'd give it something higher than a 1/10, maybe even a passing grade, if I could progress past the start. I simply can't. I've died over 20 times since stepping foot into the first new zone and trying to do the first story mission. I had no problems in this game before the expansion, and I'm leveling a revenant without any problems... so why is it so hard now? I literally can't progress past the first story mission in Dry Tops or wherever I am. I wanted an MMO to play, so I came back to GW2 and I bought the expansion despite being fairly poor, but I figured I'd get hours of enjoyment out of it and that would offset the cost of the expansion. I feel like I just threw money away instead, money that could have gone towards groceries and such. This is just stupidly difficult, and I was never a bad player previously. Way to go ArenaNet, you've probably left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people.… Expand
  96. Lechasseur
    Mar 8, 2016
    2
    This expansion has completely decimated the community. Entire guilds have been killed due to players no longer logging in because of how dead the content is. WvW is broken(more so tham usual) and has been broken since October. PVE is dead to those who like content other than brainlessly following a group. The new maps are pretty sure, but theu just hide the fact that all they have are theThis expansion has completely decimated the community. Entire guilds have been killed due to players no longer logging in because of how dead the content is. WvW is broken(more so tham usual) and has been broken since October. PVE is dead to those who like content other than brainlessly following a group. The new maps are pretty sure, but theu just hide the fact that all they have are the same events over and over. The tangled depths are a huge **** This expansion isnt worth $10 let alone $50.… Expand
  97. marc5477
    Feb 13, 2016
    3
    Grind GRing GRInd GRINd GRIND!!! Thats all this expansion is.

    I am a fan of GW2 despite its many flaws and was hoping for something new in this expansion but alas, it was a let down. Not only is the content just more of the same (zerg this, zerg that) but they made it grindy as hell... they created new currency for each of the new zones that forces the player to grind the same cycle of    Grind GRing GRInd GRINd GRIND!!! Thats all this expansion is.

    I am a fan of GW2 despite its many flaws and was hoping for something new in this expansion but alas, it was a let down. Not only is the content just more of the same (zerg this, zerg that) but they made it grindy as hell... they created new currency for each of the new zones that forces the player to grind the same cycle of quests more than a hundred times to get the items in each map. The quests are just like old world quests and just as boring when you have to repeat them.

    The one notable difference is the enemies are harder but not in a good way. They simply have more hit points and hit harder but they dont do anything interesting and for the most part, they do not require any strategy or anything like that to beat. Think Planes of Power in EQ (which is when that MMO fell apart as well). Its just the same enemies from the old game but hit harder and take longer to kill. The problem is that they are still trivially easy to beat so all this does is make the grind even worse. On top of all that, there is no reason to fight them... and that is the real killer. You dont get better loot for killing them because they didnt add any new loot to the game... just new skins for the same old same and thus, there is no point to any of it.

    The only cool new mechanic is the ability to glide from a fall... but its not as if you need this in the old world for anything. Other than that, no interest new items (just new looks/skins), no interest bosses (they are all just zerg fests like old bosses) and lastly, the story is clearly contrived and an afterthought and not nearly as good as the original game quest.

    I had to remember that this game is made by a Korean company and Koreans are known for their grindy MMO's like Lineage, which many western gamers (like myself) get bored of very quickly.

    There is no reason to own this expansion. Just play the original game and once you are bored move on. This brings nothing worthwhile to the table.    … Expand
  98. karitata
    Dec 5, 2015
    0
    Core Guild Wars 2 had a rich content with many options to level and progress a character. In core Guild Wars 2 there was no requirement to complete sub content like map completion, achievements, jumping puzzles or mini games. HoT offers no options at all. To be able to level and progress a character in HoT all tasks related to mastery points needed to unlock mastery skills has to beCore Guild Wars 2 had a rich content with many options to level and progress a character. In core Guild Wars 2 there was no requirement to complete sub content like map completion, achievements, jumping puzzles or mini games. HoT offers no options at all. To be able to level and progress a character in HoT all tasks related to mastery points needed to unlock mastery skills has to be completed. If not able to complete all tasks there is no way to progress further in the game. Not only is it a flaw it is also simple-minded. It would be interesting to learn why the developing team decided to lock out players with an even so slight maneuvering trouble.… Expand
  99. Oxicleen
    Dec 11, 2015
    2
    Game has been redesigned to feed the cash cow NCSoft, PvE, PvP, WvW, Dungeons, Fractals, and Raids are all lacking rewards to fit the Cash->Gems->Gold conversion system since the game is starting to fail. Pay heed to the 200+ negative reviews as they are from the actual players who have been here since 2012, the positive reviews are usually from "first impression" reviewers who haveGame has been redesigned to feed the cash cow NCSoft, PvE, PvP, WvW, Dungeons, Fractals, and Raids are all lacking rewards to fit the Cash->Gems->Gold conversion system since the game is starting to fail. Pay heed to the 200+ negative reviews as they are from the actual players who have been here since 2012, the positive reviews are usually from "first impression" reviewers who have probably invested less than 10 hours into the gameplay and have not realized the game LOOKS good, but it's not good anymore. It's a painted horse, there to entice you to pay your money and then realize how little there is in the end.

    DO NOT buy the expansion. There is a reason why this game went free to play.    … Expand
  100. MechVampyre
    Dec 9, 2015
    0
    while pre-HoT core speccs needed buffs, nerfs, fixes they ignored it and threw in all this elite speccs with HoT which are mostly overpowered.
    everything depends on passives and stupidly smashing buttons for aoe-rekt everything within range...
    on the other side you have thief with his cool evade animations and so on... most of the time theyre hopping around while stealthed and then    while pre-HoT core speccs needed buffs, nerfs, fixes they ignored it and threw in all this elite speccs with HoT which are mostly overpowered.
    everything depends on passives and stupidly smashing buttons for aoe-rekt everything within range...
    on the other side you have thief with his cool evade animations and so on... most of the time theyre hopping around while stealthed and then getting accidently rekt by random aoe spamming and appear from stealth downed a few seconds later...
    whole balance has become a bad joke...    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

51
#51 Best PC Game of 2015
10
#10 Most Discussed PC Game of 2015
15
#15 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 22
  3. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. CD-Action
    Jan 12, 2016
    85
    Heart of Thorns is so good I forgot the flaws that made me lose interest in the original game after my initial delight with it. [13/2015, p.64]
  2. Games Master UK
    Jan 3, 2016
    85
    Not the biggest expansion, but it enhances the best parts of an already magnificent MMO. [Christmas 2015, p.75]
  3. Edge Magazine
    Jan 3, 2016
    80
    In spite of the odd stumble, it's a wonderful journey. [Jan 2016, p.120]
See all critic reviews »