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. skilliard
    Mar 7, 2016
    1
    For $50 you get an expansion that has roughly 8 hours worth of content. Then it gets boring again. The game is pay2win. There are never any content updates anymore besides paid DLC. Combat is dull and uninspired.
  2. jellorageh
    Dec 9, 2015
    0
    They released a broken, unfinished expansion that didn't deliver half the things it promised. I got maybe two weeks out of it. Not only did they make an expansion that is riddled with progress blocking pugs, incredible grind and major oversights, missing items... they also broke the core game in the progress.
  3. razor1000
    Dec 1, 2015
    3
    I'll narrate how I went from loving this game to barely playing it nowadays. This review will mostly address the PVP content and "balance" in game. I have bought HoT (Heart of Thorns) by the way, in case in my review it might sound like I haven't.

    I play every game mode in GW2 (PVE, PVP), from release (2012). I've always considered this game to be excellent in many aspects, but if I had    I'll narrate how I went from loving this game to barely playing it nowadays. This review will mostly address the PVP content and "balance" in game. I have bought HoT (Heart of Thorns) by the way, in case in my review it might sound like I haven't.

    I play every game mode in GW2 (PVE, PVP), from release (2012). I've always considered this game to be excellent in many aspects, but if I had to what I liked the most it would hands down be the combat system. A game can look gorgeous, have amazing lore and community, but in my opinion if it has a dull combat system, I wouldn't see myself playing for long.

    To describe my playstyle in general, it would be versatilty, and complex mechanics. I like to challenge myself in various game genres to play the unused characters, or the ones with the highest risk and reward. Sadly, that kind of playstyle no longer exists in GW2.

    Why? Because ArenaNet (GW2 developer) don't have a clue when it comes to proper pvp balance. This is not overreacting, I'm not one of those idiots quick to cry OP to anything I can't beat. This is a reality in this game. There's so much wrong with ArenaNet's recent approach to pvp balance that I'll break it down in 4 different paragraphs:

    1. Unbelievable power creep: With HoT, elite specializations were introduced (think of them as enhanced base professions). Every single one of these is blatantly and disgustingly better than their base counterparts. I really can't tell if ArenaNet planned this in order to force people to buy HoT to remain competitive, or if they're that inept when it comes to proper pvp balance. It goes to show how bad the power creep is when the hands down BEST build pre HoT in pvp cannot even hold a candle to these new elite specializations. The funniest part is that ArenaNet as a company has pursued becoming an E-Sport with their pvp for a long time. They aim for their pvp to be competitive and widespread yet you CANNOT COMPETE if you don't own the expansion (due to not having the elite specs, thus being forced to use non-viable builds), where's the logic in this?

    2. Lies, and more lies: The pvp season just started. Yes, in December the 1st, over 1 month after HoT was released. An ArenaNet dev stated that 2 weeks before each pvp season, there would be a balance patch related to pvp. Needless to say that didn't happen. Back at the start of November, we learned that the actual pvp season wouldn't start until a month later. We were hopeful. The consensus was that ArenaNet was monitoring the status of pvp so they could properly rebalance stuff as needed before the actual pvp season started. None of this happened. They just went into it with the entirety of the non-elite spec builds unviable (sucks to be you, F2P users!) and no hope for a balance patch until the next season starts in a few months.

    3. Lack of vital pvp features 3 years in: They try to be recognized as an e-sport yet they can't add core pvp features such as solo queue (all you have is 1 queue that combines premades and solo players), spectating (currently only possible in custom hotjoin matches), proper matchmaking, etc.

    And lastly

    4. The balance itself (or lack thereof): GW2 used to have a clean pvp system. The skills with crowd control were few, your survivability was tied to how well you performed, your profession actually required timing, and skillful placement of abilities to come out on top. This has all been but destroyed. Even before HoT ArenaNet shifted the PVP balance to passive procs that automatically helped you at certain hp thresholds. Fast forward to HoT, every new elite spec has a massive arsenal of crowd control, damage, gimmicks, low counterplay, low risk high reward gameplay, fire n forget abilities and extremely low cooldowns. I play one of the most execution demanding classes / builds in the game (scepter elementalist). I know my stuff, but I stand no chance against a player using a elite specs granted they're at least slightly good. It is increasingly aggravating when ArenaNet promises buffs for scepter elementalist and then come patch notes and you find that your useless ability that was impossible to land reliably now does 10% more damage. Or that a class that has only received nerfs for 3 years straight (thief) continues to get random nerfs despite being bottom tier for very long. At this point it just becomes comical.

    In conclusion:

    The PVE part of HoT is good to kill time. It's grindy and I like that. The pvp is at its worse its ever been IMO, I used to like pvp but now I have retired for good. You might enjoy it if you like being carried by overtuned, easy and forgiving mechanics. But if you enjoyed a challenge like me, or happened to be a pre-HoT spec user, you'll have a very hard time.

    In short, ArenaNet's complete disregard of balance to prioritize HoT sales, while pretending to hilariously care about "e-sports" can only be compared to being spit in the face multiple times.

    If you like to PVP, do not buy this game.    … Expand
  4. DanteYoda
    May 8, 2016
    2
    Guildwars 2 is no longer for casual players, you enjoy solo play this expansion is not for you..The game has completely forgotten its values of when it was released, everything they stood for is gone.

    What do you have to look forward to in Heart of Thorns Mind numbing difficult, what ever happened to fun enjoyable game play?, nope the hardcore cancer that is infecting a lot of games    Guildwars 2 is no longer for casual players, you enjoy solo play this expansion is not for you..The game has completely forgotten its values of when it was released, everything they stood for is gone.

    What do you have to look forward to in Heart of Thorns

    Mind numbing difficult, what ever happened to fun enjoyable game play?, nope the hardcore cancer that is infecting a lot of games these days has well and truly got its claws into HoT, to the point of unplayable solo, Arenanet claim they've made it easier but that is completely false.

    Grind - of multiple types, you name its its there, loot grind, exp grind, resources grind, consumables grind, as of writing this i cannot think of a part of HoT that doesn't have horrible grind attached to it.

    Rng - The randomness is mind boggling, everything you'd ever want is locked behind some ungodly rng so good luck ever seeing it.

    Half of what they promised has not even been added to this day, Legendaries nope that's all over now. sorry if you purchased this for them.

    Honestly if you value your money stay clear, the game is losing population badly.    … Expand
  5. Cosmicegg37
    Apr 7, 2016
    1
    I've been enjoying the Guild Wars franchise since the release of Guild Wars 1 and I had high hopes for Guild Wars 2 heart of thorns they advertise exciting content but failed to deliver parts of the game has been scrapped completely after failed promises after failed promises I cannot recommend this game
  6. inocciduous
    Dec 7, 2015
    4
    Very good
    - General area aesthetics and art design. Considering this is still running on DX9 - it's top notch.
    - Gliding, albeit not as functional as Archeage's, but still good. - Music is fantastic Good - New class specialisations. Average - The core story - Meta events and questing (I'm putting this here ONLY because you need to use your head a little when dealing with NPCs    Very good
    - General area aesthetics and art design. Considering this is still running on DX9 - it's top notch.
    - Gliding, albeit not as functional as Archeage's, but still good.
    - Music is fantastic

    Good
    - New class specialisations.

    Average
    - The core story
    - Meta events and questing (I'm putting this here ONLY because you need to use your head a little when dealing with NPCs instead of 1-1-1-1-1-1-1). Quite frankly, the repeating meta-events got tiresome after two weeks, are compulsory to progress in the mastery system and also are required for specific deeds (which can get very, very, very tedious).
    - The mastery system.

    No so good
    - Vanilla GW2 rewards have been nerfed into next year.
    - Revoked the 'play as you like’ philosophy for many aspects of gameplay.
    - Class imbalances (will be addressed 'next year'). Right now, vanilla characters are somewhat-to- extremely-weak compared to their ‘specialised’ counterparts.
    - Where is GW2's no grind philosophy? Excessive grinding for 'pseudo-progression', items, specific map currency and increased crafting values for items.
    - Still have not addressed the core mechanics and issues (mass population stacking, zerging etc) associated with WvW, nor rewards going on three years. This really does surprise me as the game mode has such promise due to the gameplay and combat mechanics, but it's still totally neglected.
    - Any previously upgraded guild has been completely guttered and set back to 'level one' (so to speak), even if you purchased upgrades with a gem conversion. This content is masked behind months of tedious grind. WvW (gamemode) upgrades are also locked behind excessive PvE content and resource grind (which to me seems rather silly given that it IS for WvW) and really doesn't favour guilds with less than 15 players at all. To be honest, it seems like the guild system was purely introduced in this state as a 'fix' for the GW2 economy with zero consideration given to the WvW demographic (who get minimum rewards as it is). In this way, the guild system itself is pretty poorly thought-out, moreover the inherent mechanics between players - guild.    … Expand
  7. Linnavisa
    Jan 2, 2016
    0
    Heart of Thorns should be labeled with a warning that the game is not intended for players that are a little bit slow when it comes to move a character around or having a little bit slower reaction. This game is impossible to progress if not able to participate in all tasks related to the new leveling system with mastery points. The game lacks options for collecting the needed masteryHeart of Thorns should be labeled with a warning that the game is not intended for players that are a little bit slow when it comes to move a character around or having a little bit slower reaction. This game is impossible to progress if not able to participate in all tasks related to the new leveling system with mastery points. The game lacks options for collecting the needed mastery points as many points requires the ability to play arcade games or mini games with a very short timer and other hard achievements. If unable to complete some of the tasks related to mastery points there is no way to progress and level up a character. This game is sloppy and thoughtless, not a worthy expansion to core Guild Wars 2.

    Also be aware that what is referred to as adventures has nothing to do with the game genre adventure. The adventures in this game are a mix between arcade and mini games. Those arcade or mini games are tightly tied to the in game essential mastery points needed for leveling a characters abilities.    … Expand
  8. cygnarite
    Dec 2, 2015
    1
    This review is from a PvP perspective.

    I'll begin with a summary: If you're a fan of PvP, avoid this steaming pile at all costs. Actual balance between classes is subjective, so we won't talk about that, but it is clear with HoT that some classes are winners (Revenant, tempest), and other classes are losers (Thief, warrior). The developer has broken their promise of releasing    This review is from a PvP perspective.

    I'll begin with a summary: If you're a fan of PvP, avoid this steaming pile at all costs.

    Actual balance between classes is subjective, so we won't talk about that, but it is clear with HoT that some classes are winners (Revenant, tempest), and other classes are losers (Thief, warrior).

    The developer has broken their promise of releasing balance patches multiple times since HoT was released with absolutely no explanation as to why.

    The developer constantly sneaks in unannounced ("stealth") changes to classes with no acknowledgement in the patch notes or reasoning to the playerbase.

    Balance patches happen once ever 6 months, if that, giving OP specs months to dominate the meta and make the game unfun. When they finally get around to "fixing" it, said spec is always nerfed into the ground and unplayable rather than fixed.

    There's STILL no PTS (public test server). Every single patch rolls out with a ridiculous amount of bugs that require 2-7 days to fix. Bugs that existed at launch still exist in the game now.

    Honestly, I could go on for another 5-10 points, but do i really need to? Spend your hard earned cash elsewhere.    … Expand
  9. Etay
    Dec 26, 2015
    3
    wvw is dead now because of this expansion and lots of lags
    the expansion is not needed if you use your old class in pvp or wvw..
    and in my opinion the new maps suck!
  10. RedCombLP
    Jul 8, 2016
    0
    HoT expansion turned this once fine game into a p2w gear grind. WvW now is totally unbalanced (power creep of HoT classes against old classes is unforgivable). It's clear the devs want to funnel everybody into buying HoT, so if you are an old player who prefers to play older classes, you will be left out in the cold. Worse still, many of the HoT features like the guild hall took away a lotHoT expansion turned this once fine game into a p2w gear grind. WvW now is totally unbalanced (power creep of HoT classes against old classes is unforgivable). It's clear the devs want to funnel everybody into buying HoT, so if you are an old player who prefers to play older classes, you will be left out in the cold. Worse still, many of the HoT features like the guild hall took away a lot of hard work previously completed by guilds, and if you aren't a HoT player, you have no real access to any of the stuff in the guild hall (sure, you can go there and look around, but none of the NPCs will actually let you do anything unless you buy HoT). It's clear Anet doesn't care about older players who don't like pve content and don't appreciate how OP and unbalanced all of the new classes/elite specs are. We don't make them money so they gave us the bird. Hope all the p2w people who love pve gear treadmills enjoy, because I'm done.… Expand
  11. johnyboy420
    May 31, 2016
    0
    this Xpac is a waste of money plain and simple!

    only real reason i got HOT waz for the claimed PVP matchmaker that waz released late and is 100X worse then Mechwarrior:online's matchmaker......LOL thats saying alot (-_-) then WvW new cliff fall simulator that is EZ'er then hell too get lost in and has tons of broken PVE in it only now too get thrown away and bring back the old    this Xpac is a waste of money plain and simple!

    only real reason i got HOT waz for the claimed PVP matchmaker that waz released late and is 100X worse then Mechwarrior:online's matchmaker......LOL thats saying alot (-_-)

    then WvW new cliff fall simulator that is EZ'er then hell too get lost in and has tons of broken PVE in it
    only now too get thrown away and bring back the old map's.....lawl too bad this Xpac killed my server RIP

    i give this Xpac a zero for giving me **** all but making me more toxic and not giving me a descent MatchMaker, for a PVP RPG lover this game is trash now not worth the 50 bucks even if they give you a Free 80 too start your game    … Expand
  12. Zlare
    Feb 3, 2016
    3
    The little content of this overpriced expansion cant bring the game back to life. Guild Wars 2 looks outdated and gameplay feels okay but the story is short and after that there is once again nothing. Guild Wars continues its story of having very litle to do after finishing the story. Of course you can always go into the world and spend hours collecting more hero points but they is veryThe little content of this overpriced expansion cant bring the game back to life. Guild Wars 2 looks outdated and gameplay feels okay but the story is short and after that there is once again nothing. Guild Wars continues its story of having very litle to do after finishing the story. Of course you can always go into the world and spend hours collecting more hero points but they is very little to do with those hero points. What is the point of upgrading your character if you could do all the content before those upgrades aswell?
    Sadly all new areas are made of meta events which require a lot of people to participate. That worked the first time after release but now the areas are rather empty. Also the interesting quest design from the normal GW2 is complety gone. The new areas consist only of meta events.
    Sadly this expansion doesn't change anything about the concept of GW2 of being a game where progress means very little and endgame is nonexistent.    … Expand
  13. Asguard
    Dec 1, 2015
    2
    Only game mode I play was drastically taken a dump on world vs world, new maps that were added were made too big with choke points at every corner.
    Fighting in these maps are no fun and being in T1 the highest population servers people stay away from the new maps like the plague, making the map feel like it looks a barren dry dead land.
  14. ichigohatake
    Dec 1, 2015
    3
    I enjoyed the game, but I'm giving it 3 because the developers does not know how to balance their game. This game rarely gets balance patches, and when it does some of the changes are just terrible. The expansion has made alot of its classes op while leaving some classes in the dust, instead of fixing these problems, the developers ignore it and nerf the weak classes even more. I'mI enjoyed the game, but I'm giving it 3 because the developers does not know how to balance their game. This game rarely gets balance patches, and when it does some of the changes are just terrible. The expansion has made alot of its classes op while leaving some classes in the dust, instead of fixing these problems, the developers ignore it and nerf the weak classes even more. I'm guessing they are not going to fix any balancing issues until the expansion sales decreases, they want to give players an incentive for buying to expansion pack. The expansion pack deals are great for new players because you also get the core game, but for veterans it is a terrible deal.… Expand
  15. Erikkaa
    Nov 22, 2015
    0
    For being a new game HoT is surprisingly unimaginative as it offers only event farming for character progress. HoT could have been a great game. The new maps are wonderful, lots of claustrophobic tunnels, dead ends, narrow places and all zones cluttered with hard hitting mobs. Most things needed for progress is locked behind a neat system of mastery and hero points. It could have been goodFor being a new game HoT is surprisingly unimaginative as it offers only event farming for character progress. HoT could have been a great game. The new maps are wonderful, lots of claustrophobic tunnels, dead ends, narrow places and all zones cluttered with hard hitting mobs. Most things needed for progress is locked behind a neat system of mastery and hero points. It could have been good but turned out to be farming event only. To progress you have to unlock masteries and collect hero points. Team up, join others and spam your skills all the way through it over and over. HoT is time consuming and farming event is all there is if you want to progress your character. There are no heroines or heroes in HoT, only event farmers.… Expand
  16. Evalina
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    HoT is a farming game, one way to play the game only. Four fantastic new maps with nothing more than farming events in order to unlock needed masteries. To fully explore the new maps masteries is needed. The lack of options to gain progress and experience makes the game uninteresting and linear. Playing the game consists of running after event and spamming buttons. The adventures are inHoT is a farming game, one way to play the game only. Four fantastic new maps with nothing more than farming events in order to unlock needed masteries. To fully explore the new maps masteries is needed. The lack of options to gain progress and experience makes the game uninteresting and linear. Playing the game consists of running after event and spamming buttons. The adventures are in fact small mini-games not even close to be an adventure. If you as a player want to challenge yourself and prove yourself as a player HoT is not the game for it. The core Guild Wars 2 was a fantastic game. HoT is nothing but time consuming event farming.… Expand
  17. WiLdEcaRd
    Dec 18, 2015
    3
    It turned out that A.Net is one of the most unworthy of my attention group of developers and HoT's is nothing more than grind fest.All there manifesto is out of the window,and so it remains for me nothing else but to leave this sinking ship.
    3/10 for beautiful graphics and musical setting.
  18. truereviewforyo
    Dec 13, 2015
    2
    The game is amazing when you are running solo or in a small party. The UI is friendly for solo play, but when it comes down to figuring out how the guild actions work, you are left with asking questions that it come with no explanation. The functions for party/guild play are very confusing....and most of the time you will get a guild friend that will never answer your question, but giveThe game is amazing when you are running solo or in a small party. The UI is friendly for solo play, but when it comes down to figuring out how the guild actions work, you are left with asking questions that it come with no explanation. The functions for party/guild play are very confusing....and most of the time you will get a guild friend that will never answer your question, but give you a link to a portal that gives you no help. I mean, come on, don't link a portal, you can answer 1 question cant you? Instead, here's a portal that you haven't discovered (cant travel to), instead of answering if it were possible to craft weapons. WTF is that?
    I've had the "benefit" of joining llama and AARM and it was absolutely horrible. They post that they are noob friendly, but that is complete bullchit, I have been an mmo gamer for 12+ years and they couldn't answer the simplest of questions concerning the UI for guild use. For instance, invited to a guild/ party instance or set of quests, they would link a portal and when someone showed up, they would disappear and leave you wondering. Asking questions was a waste of time, just another link to a portal that no one is at.

    Most people brag that they have been a GW player for 8 years, but cant answer the simplest of questions. ~Hey, Im great at this game, what was the question and what do you mean by how I can help you?~ Full of morons! Play time doesn't make you a leader, knowledge does.

    If you want a great solo game that isn't as bad, as most, this is definitely the game. Tons of content with some quests that had me laughing. Keep in mind that most are slayer quests and you will be battling...or searching for the correct area to complete the quests. Annoying at times, but fun.

    Just be careful of which guild you join if you want to excel at the game and have fun with friends.    … Expand
  19. zaftgun
    Jan 23, 2017
    0
    if this game is worth a 10 in some eyes, then it is definitely a 0 in some eyes too and all those with bs marketing like language that's not worth the paper its printed on.

    1. Everything including the main story locked behind exp grind with almost no new content to back it up. You play the old content to grind exp. The new maps are small, very very few events repeat themselves at very    if this game is worth a 10 in some eyes, then it is definitely a 0 in some eyes too and all those with bs marketing like language that's not worth the paper its printed on.

    1. Everything including the main story locked behind exp grind with almost no new content to back it up. You play the old content to grind exp. The new maps are small, very very few events repeat themselves at very short intervals over and over. Merchants in each area require tokens from that specific map available only through grinding those few events.

    2. Expansion skills adds a huge damage spike and are way more effective than almost all pre-expansion skills. If you dont have the expansion then you are no where near as effective as you can be. There are also almost no non-expansion players. Essentially, if you dont have the expansion you might as well not play.

    3. The story is terrible, and very poorly made. I dont think I can recall anything worse.

    4. There are so many garbage items that serves almost no purpose or require so much grind and additional resource to make use of its just not worth the trouble unless you've got absolutely nothing to do. To top it off they make them and so many other things account bound. There's so much garbage that a 5 20 slot bags arent enough.

    5. After 5 years of guild wars 2 build template still not done. For some reason they thought they can send me an email before heart of the thorns release saying build templates is coming. As it stands its still not there. There's no weapon and armor sets switch option, so many redundant clicks to open bags, click through confirmations and so many more that is just so much pain.

    No where near any of the quality of guild wars 1 expansions. Utter garbage that is infuriating to experience. I want a refund.    … Expand
  20. olia_bn
    Nov 11, 2015
    4
    What may seem like new content is just content stretched out by more grind in-between, which actually seems to be ANets new methodology: artificial content by grind. Sad and quite frankly, not really worth the money.
  21. brokendust
    Nov 3, 2015
    0
    I created an account just to give this expansion a score of 0. I was a staunch supporter of this game and this expansion for a long time, but it's become abundantly clear that this expansion (and the update to the base game that came with it) is poorly coded, and the developers have no clue how to fix it. The game is incredibly unstable and crashes often enough to make getting anythingI created an account just to give this expansion a score of 0. I was a staunch supporter of this game and this expansion for a long time, but it's become abundantly clear that this expansion (and the update to the base game that came with it) is poorly coded, and the developers have no clue how to fix it. The game is incredibly unstable and crashes often enough to make getting anything meaningful done impossible. The entire mid-to-end game revolves around competing map-wide events and long instances, both of which you will lose all progress within when you inevitably crash. This. Game. Will. Not. Stop. Crashing. It is widespread and is not a hardware issue; I'm running with an i7 4790k, 16GB RAM and GTX 970 SLI. It is a client issue and the client is broken. It's been almost a month now, and no progress has been made or hinted towards with this massive flaw. This game cannot be played. It deserves a zero.… Expand
  22. FireFruit
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    First why did I decide to create account and actually give my feedback?

    Because of careless developers that threat ranger class like the last class in the game, with zero respect and feedback to players that care and work hard to have communication about the issues that this game has. After 3,5 years I was hoping this game to get balanced, specially ranger class, I won't even start    First why did I decide to create account and actually give my feedback?

    Because of careless developers that threat ranger class like the last class in the game, with zero respect and feedback to players that care and work hard to have communication about the issues that this game has.

    After 3,5 years I was hoping this game to get balanced, specially ranger class, I won't even start how clunky this class is, because 5000 characters is way to less to do that. Anet did rush in development of one of the most simple core classes named Ranger. In expansion they did successfully release rushed Specialization for Ranger named Druid. This class would be fun, but simply due to some conflict inside of arena net, some one in developer team is on purpose ruining the class.

    Because of that I'm rating this game unbalanced, Core tyria has no challenge what so ever and no matter what you do it has no meaning, WvW after 3,5 years still has skill lag when there is fight 40+ and game mode becomes unplayable for last 3 years, I simply don't know why is ArenaNet so proudly representing WvW when they give zero effort into fixing existing problems for over 3 years, they don't fix bugs, they don't add rewards, the only thing they have done in 3,5 years was removing and crippling the ranking system. They say you can play your game how you want, but that truly means weather you want pvp or PvE, you can't play WvW because they enforce you to do PvE to have steady income.

    One would think game is amazing without subscription, but yet they give you 90% of the content on GEM store exclusively for limited amount of time so that players spend extra money on that. They say game is different from every other, but to be honest, this game is all about grind, and there is absolutely less fun and worst gaming experience i've had in my MMORPG games.

    One would ask me, but why do you still play it? Because GW1 devs did know how to hand things, they got us addicted, and part of us still believes to support them for greather good. But here is where we draw the line. You had 3.5 years, now i'll rate this game with fair score.

    Hearth Of Thorns expansion was released 23.oct, today not even 1 month later, 90% of people cannot finish simple quests due to poor content balance. ( don't take me wrong, HoT maps were amazing) Yet your concept and to keep people playing is wrong on so many levels, your rewards makes you feel unrewarded and grindy!

    Where are GW1 developers that had frequent, pleasant and warm communication with us?
    Where are GW1 developers that did balance the game even with 600 more skills?
    Where are those days when game did not feel grindy?
    Who employed you GW2 developers that only care for money garbing for very little content?    … Expand
  23. Vahden
    Dec 1, 2015
    4
    Broken promises and more focus on maintaining the gemstore then fixing the base game. It seems like more then half of what does get added to the game then gets pulled due to being either bad design or horrendously unpopular. Most of which could have been avoided if they actually listened to the player base in the first place.
  24. Sebba
    Oct 28, 2015
    2
    I wrote a negative review, it got deleted and I dont know why. soo I'm forced to write a negative review again. lets start with the good stuff. the new areas really do look marvelous, giant frogs, dragon pets, story, music, all that is really nice to have a short and nice experience.

    but since I have a loooot of characters on lvl80 I see many points in the game that range from    I wrote a negative review, it got deleted and I dont know why. soo I'm forced to write a negative review again. lets start with the good stuff. the new areas really do look marvelous, giant frogs, dragon pets, story, music, all that is really nice to have a short and nice experience.

    but since I have a loooot of characters on lvl80 I see many points in the game that range from frustrating to outrageous. after the update you need 250 instead of 400 hero points to unlock a new weapon, a traitline and 4 new skills. if you only have 2 or 3 characters that might be no problem at all, but if you want to experience all the new weapons and skills on each class you have to get your 250 hero points at least 9 times, which might take a while. in order to get those points you have to earn level ups on the disguised new level cap called mastery system, because most of the hero points are gated behind mastery points and affiliated skills. that doesn't make the game more rewarding, challenging or "harder", it just makes it take much longer to get where you want. I also think it is important to add that in some feature patch a few months before the addon all former scrolls of knowledge, which would give you one skill point (which are now called hero points) where turned in spiritshards, a different new currency which now cant be used to level up your hero points anymore, with the only reason behind it being to prevent you from leveling up your chars new specialization. I find that really frustrating.

    another thing that really bothers me is that except pvp every other ingame aspect is nerfed and much less rewarding. xp gain is nerfed, dungeon rewards are nerfed, fractal rewards are nerfed. all just being meant to slow you down and keep you playing much longer in a very unfun, unrewarding, work-like type of gameplay. I know that this is the "magic recipe" of mmos but still I play a game because I want to have fun playing it. like most people I already have a rather boring repetitive job in real life.

    there are so many little small things... the new guild halls are sure looking nice too. but on the other hand I cant earn "influence" anymore by just playing the game like before, I can earn the new currency "favor" only by doing guild missions. there is practically no reason to represent a guild anymore since nothing except guild missions actually matters to help my guild progress. in wvw there is no more claiming, so dedicated guilds cant show off by putting their guild emblem on castles and such. even if a guild has earned fancy decorations etc for the guild, the circle of people to actually see that a guild has progressed and did great on something is pretty much the guild itself and they know anyway because they are the ones who did it.

    my list could go on and on and sure it's all about personal taste. for example why are the new borderlands desert maps? because the devs are good at designing deserts? after dry top desert and silverwastes desert pve maps we need another desert map for wvw? what is the idea behind that? maybe for economic reasons because deserts are pretty much sand only with some rocks. or why do we need a moba style pvp map? because there aren't enough real mobas on the market already?

    well, as you can see I'm not really happy with the expansion and I do regret to even have bought the pre-order version. I'm convinced there are many more who feel like anet is trying to take the fun out of the game and make it feel much more like work. and in fact just as many people seem to like it that way. I don't.    … Expand
  25. Vankeios
    Nov 28, 2015
    4
    In other games you pay for quality content. I want to be brief. THIS GAMES PUNISH YOU FOR PLAYING.

    -Worst HUD/UI possible. -Unbalanced Classes(P2W Specializations) -- (nonsense like Heavy Armor Stealth). -Unrewarding and unchallenging PvE(3 years and no endgame) -Unworthy PvP, Unbalanced, Boring.(fans says this is endgame, well it is not). -Outdated Graphic and worse than that NOT    In other games you pay for quality content. I want to be brief. THIS GAMES PUNISH YOU FOR PLAYING.

    -Worst HUD/UI possible.
    -Unbalanced Classes(P2W Specializations) -- (nonsense like Heavy Armor Stealth).
    -Unrewarding and unchallenging PvE(3 years and no endgame)
    -Unworthy PvP, Unbalanced, Boring.(fans says this is endgame, well it is not).
    -Outdated Graphic and worse than that NOT OPTIMIZED.    … Expand
  26. Ellthan
    Aug 26, 2016
    0
    I just paid 40 **** bucks for this game.

    Upon installing and logging in for the first time I was immediately banned for gold selling before I even got to play the game.

    I don't even know what gold selling is.
  27. Basedshitposter
    Aug 12, 2016
    0
    Many things advertised in the expansion delayed for over a year or didnt come out/canceled completely. Long drought of content updates. Game was better Pre HoT.
  28. CalScott
    Nov 11, 2015
    0
    Visually this expansion is amazing but practically it is one of the worst things I have ever had the displeasure of playing. The enemies are powered to the point that if you walk ANYWHERE alone you will die. Skill points often takes team of 4+ people to do now. Missions are just constantly the same "go here and speak to him" or "defend this". The meta events have NO explanation and theVisually this expansion is amazing but practically it is one of the worst things I have ever had the displeasure of playing. The enemies are powered to the point that if you walk ANYWHERE alone you will die. Skill points often takes team of 4+ people to do now. Missions are just constantly the same "go here and speak to him" or "defend this". The meta events have NO explanation and the game gives you no grasp on what you should be doing. World bosses are no longer proper world bosses and are just regular events. I was hoping for an epic Tequatl like boss and I am very disappointed

    The ONLY good addition to the game is the Revenant which is the most fun class I have played in any MMO. Period. WoWs classes pale in comparison. However the Revenant class isn't good enough to warrant the £39 price tag as I have found myself resenting Guild Wars and Anet for providing me with such **** I have played HoT for around 15 hours and I hate it. Everything about it, is without a doubt, the worst part of Guild Wars 2.

    Also, with the addition of HoT they changed the WvW maps to be overly complicated, janky and buggy. HoT has ruined Guild Wars single handed. Thanks ANet for absolutely **** nothing!    … Expand
  29. Utopia12
    Nov 20, 2015
    3
    The core game is great, if you've never played it before, they got a F2P system set up so you can play for yourself. Definitely something every gamer should experience.

    However, most of the original developers left the company, and everything went downhill, the new story is bland, the new maps are confusing and poorly delivered, pvp balance is a complete disaster (VERY punishing to new    The core game is great, if you've never played it before, they got a F2P system set up so you can play for yourself. Definitely something every gamer should experience.

    However, most of the original developers left the company, and everything went downhill, the new story is bland, the new maps are confusing and poorly delivered, pvp balance is a complete disaster (VERY punishing to new players, very CC centric), they're ruining the most beautiful skill animations in the sake of poorly thought-out clarity (they're actually making them harder to recognize) completely ruining the works of the talented developers that worked on this game.

    On top of it, they completely ignore their community, I've been through some rough stuff, Nexon and NCSoft to name a few, but they're even worse than them, not only do they NOT listen or respond to their community, they do the COMPLETE opposite of what's requested, in bad taste. AVOID AT ALL COSTS unless you want to get stressed and angry.

    Is the core game good? YES, and it's free. Is the EXPANSION worth buying? a resounding NO.    … Expand
  30. RanmaKei
    Nov 6, 2015
    1
    Great game, lots of fun. Expansion seems to push for more micro transactions in game. Not really a big deal since technically you don't need to purchase any of that stuff. Guild improvements were made, but progress from before the expansion is lost and some of the guild stuff isn't working or disabled. You can no longer progress your guilds on guild members individual participation. YouGreat game, lots of fun. Expansion seems to push for more micro transactions in game. Not really a big deal since technically you don't need to purchase any of that stuff. Guild improvements were made, but progress from before the expansion is lost and some of the guild stuff isn't working or disabled. You can no longer progress your guilds on guild members individual participation. You must have decent sized guild parties to complete guilds missions in order to level up guilds. Requiring everyone in the guild to be online and working at the same time. Discourages small guilds that don't have lots of members. I lost some progress after the expansion and influence since the expansion rolled out. Not sure what happened there.

    From what I hear there is still a few other things not finished yet in the game. Release was premature.

    Expansion needs to be finished. I would wait until they get things worked out.    … Expand
  31. AlexandreDR
    Oct 28, 2015
    3
    Not recommended anymore for casual gamers -- i am a casual gamer and play GW2 since more than 3 years with some breaks. The expansion HoT is a disaster. Is a massive grindfest that requires you to play within guilds. Everything is gated. You need grind to glide, grind to jump on mushrooms, ... The specializations require 100+ hours of game play eaxh to unloxk. Doing boring hero pointsNot recommended anymore for casual gamers -- i am a casual gamer and play GW2 since more than 3 years with some breaks. The expansion HoT is a disaster. Is a massive grindfest that requires you to play within guilds. Everything is gated. You need grind to glide, grind to jump on mushrooms, ... The specializations require 100+ hours of game play eaxh to unloxk. Doing boring hero points gathering 5-20 per map. The devs want to change the meta to make us invest heavily in survivability gear = more grind. No more sense to do 10-20 mns dungeons. Rewards super nerfed. Now time for hour long fractals. So yeah grind is what GW2 became.

    Spending extra money i n the game makes no sense. I had issues. Bugs. Reported with print screens. Had spent more than 300 usd on the gane. Not even an acknowledgement of receiving my bug reports.

    Graphically the game is good. The story is not immersive but muxh better than previous seasons. There is a lot for people who.have tons of time. For casual gamers this became too grindy.    … Expand
  32. itscalledalance
    Oct 28, 2015
    3
    PROS: Beautiful, Well done, very few noticeable issues at launch.

    CONS: Most of the expansion is locked behind walls only meant to slow progression. If you see something you want to do, or a place you want to get to, chances are you can not without grinding out a mastery track for hours. - See an item you can activate? "lolz nope! you dont have the right mastery to use this!" - See a    PROS: Beautiful, Well done, very few noticeable issues at launch.

    CONS: Most of the expansion is locked behind walls only meant to slow progression. If you see something you want to do, or a place you want to get to, chances are you can not without grinding out a mastery track for hours.
    - See an item you can activate? "lolz nope! you dont have the right mastery to use this!"
    - See a skill shrine you wish to use? "lolz nope! you insta-die from poison because you haven't grinded out the right mastery!"
    - Need an item for your legendary? "LOL nope! NPC is bugged and wont sell it to you! (or anyone)"
    - want to go to a way point? "lol nope! its contest...99% of the time, you'll have to run the length of a zone the size of Loio, (the barrens for you wow sluts) to get there, WHILE dodging enemies that can one shot you.
    - Want to play with your friends? "LOL nope you haven't grinded the same masteries they have!"
    - Want the cool looking new gear? "LOL nope! you haven't the right masteries, and RNGesus hans't blessed you with those drops!"
    - Want to buy an item? "LOL NOPE! you can't speak this clowns language till you grind another mastery!"

    Every step of the journey you are slapped in the face with things you CAN NOT do, places you CAN NOT GET TO, without grinding out, sometimes millions upon millions of xp doing the same half dozen events or so. Very VERY little variation in that regard. VERY poor design choices.

    The people giving it a 10/10 are hardcore gamers who dont know what a casual really is.
    or people sucking up.
    people who are not playing the game.

    Do yourself a favor, go get yourself a bot to do all the pointless daunting wall of an XP grind so you can play the game.    … Expand
  33. eridanired123
    Nov 17, 2015
    2
    Arena Net introduced the "gliding" concept, their approach to flying in the open world; have to say that it has been implemented in a magnificent way, way superior to WoWs flying mounts if I'm allowed to say. They also introduced the "Elite specializations" which are a new talent line for every class, just the fresh air that actual classes needed. Not to mention the new class "TheArena Net introduced the "gliding" concept, their approach to flying in the open world; have to say that it has been implemented in a magnificent way, way superior to WoWs flying mounts if I'm allowed to say. They also introduced the "Elite specializations" which are a new talent line for every class, just the fresh air that actual classes needed. Not to mention the new class "The Revenant" which aside from the generic story line is a fun to play class.

    But sadly all this awesome work becomes irrelevant when you have an EXTREMELY UNSTABLE software, random crashes here and there, a bug that has been around since launch 3 years ago and now is way more evident. Even worse behaviour on Mac client. Depending on your graphic settings and your hardware your client may crash as often as every some minutes or every some hours, but it will certainly happen. There are only a few documented cases that argue that they have never had any crash.

    Another huge annoyance is the high percentage of content that is now gated behind gold sinks, or heavy grinding of every posible kind you can imagine. Even content that was freely available before expansion has been moved behind grind walls.

    And lets not touch the epic fail with WvW. Where they didn't addressed a single flaw that the community has been complaining about for so long. Sure they delivered a new map which is good to have, but to be true, nobody asked for it and less with all those new problems it came with.

    The amount of new "skins" for gear and weapons that this expansion brought is very reduced compared to expansions of other MMO's with a similar budget. Worst thing is you have, of course, to GRIND your way to get many of these new skins. Sadly seems that items that should have been released as content for the expansion has been instead released trough the Gem Store, which is a real money shop for in-game items.

    The grind problem is now accentuated by a malfunctioning mechanic called "Diminishing Returns" which penalices the players with reduced or null loot for looting "too much" from a single loot table (generally a zone), this system was implemented to deincentivize farming but now it fires too often even when the player is not doing any action that can be considered farming at all.

    This new version also brought great disappointment to the instanced content lovers, because Dungeons loot has been heavily nerfed. And Worst is that known bugs and exploits hasn't been fixed. They also nerfed loot from Fractasl of the Mist (a different type of instanced content based on a couple of random maps that players can access repeatedly, difficulty escalates as its lv increases) even when they promised to buff it. Not being this enough, high lv Fractals bosses where buffed with tons of "armor" to make them more "challenging" instead of implemented interesting mechanics they have promised before. Now these bosses just take a lot of time to beat.

    The new raid content and squadron interface (a UI for groups as big as 50 players) came out late, has been released just today. And in the same way as most of the other parts of this expansion, they came out with easily to spot bugs. Seems this content hasn't been tested enough before launch. To be expected, the other parts of the expansion made you feel the same.    … Expand
  34. krlitos
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    Lack of support, constant nerfing and changes to classes (Druid) making them completely useless and unplayable after you spend hundreds of gold gearing them just to wake up and find out your build is total trash is not cool. The game had potential, sadly the devs are clueless. The music is good tho still is not enough to justify a buy, if it was possible to ask for a refund i would take it. 0/10
  35. voodoo683
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    I'm very frustrated that Guild Wars 2 lose it's core philosophy with this expansion. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards, said once Colin Johanson. Now it's gone. You're forced to do many things (such as event grinding, achievements, do raids,I'm very frustrated that Guild Wars 2 lose it's core philosophy with this expansion. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards, said once Colin Johanson. Now it's gone. You're forced to do many things (such as event grinding, achievements, do raids, even play right character class) even if you don't like it. Uniqueness that distinguishes this MMO from others is gone. Now this game more like WoW "killer" with grinding like in Korean MMO's. Also this game has no balance between classes, there are OP classes (called Meta) and other with colossal difference of power and benefits for groups (different set of classes in different aspects of game).… Expand
  36. SoulstitchMMO
    Oct 31, 2015
    1
    Grind. Absolute grind. Very limited story given the illusion of meat, by having to grind between story. Because they didn't give you levels you had to go through, they invented Mastery systems which they use to gate content until you develop certain masteries. Then they added Elite Specializations to every class, that force you to do 10 times the work for .01 times the reward. Each traitGrind. Absolute grind. Very limited story given the illusion of meat, by having to grind between story. Because they didn't give you levels you had to go through, they invented Mastery systems which they use to gate content until you develop certain masteries. Then they added Elite Specializations to every class, that force you to do 10 times the work for .01 times the reward. Each trait cost 10 hero points (and it's been lowered to that, used to cost significantly more).

    Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is the biggest waste of money I've ever spent on an expansion. The only reason I didn't give it a 0, is because I love the Revenant Elite, and if I ever unlock it I'm sure I'll enjoy the game more, but do not buy this expansion until they reverse their ridiculous Elite System.    … Expand
  37. MasterMangoose
    Oct 11, 2016
    0
    Used to be the game you could play how you wanted to get the gear you wanted. Now caters to the WoW exodus and has lost it's way by giving in to the elitist who have segregated a formerly good community in to the "leets" and the "git guds". Raids, eSports, and whiners who forgot they were playing an MMO wanting the content to be increasingly more challenging have ruined a good thing.Used to be the game you could play how you wanted to get the gear you wanted. Now caters to the WoW exodus and has lost it's way by giving in to the elitist who have segregated a formerly good community in to the "leets" and the "git guds". Raids, eSports, and whiners who forgot they were playing an MMO wanting the content to be increasingly more challenging have ruined a good thing. The expansion was a joke and instead of fixing the problem They move forward to the promise of the next expansion. The game itself is horribly optimized, only works well on certain CPUs and GPUs, and is constantly bugged. There are serious game breaking bugs that have been left to be suffered through since the games release four years ago.

    More so to the expansion in general is that we were completely lied to as to what we would receive after we paid for it. Much of the new content was hidden behind raids which we were promised wouldn't be required to play the game. However it is if you want the top tier armor which was to come with the expansion. (which hasn't been released even a year after the expansion came out)    … Expand
  38. kyochievo
    Oct 30, 2015
    0
    I'd played 3500 hours of gameplay and here is my short review.
    This expansion killed off gw2 core pve endgame game-play like dungeons,fractals ect , dot believe me ? check lfg system.
    No new dungeons and fractal maps. Want to play the new exp story mode? than you have to level up yours mastery to progress oh wait there diminishing returns. Want to get Hero points ? good luck soloing    I'd played 3500 hours of gameplay and here is my short review.
    This expansion killed off gw2 core pve endgame game-play like dungeons,fractals ect , dot believe me ? check lfg system.
    No new dungeons and fractal maps.
    Want to play the new exp story mode? than you have to level up yours mastery to progress oh wait there
    diminishing returns.
    Want to get Hero points ? good luck soloing champs to earn it after 3 months when less player doing maps.
    Unnecessarily nerfs class like rev , ranger , nercro ect .
    So much more to say about this expansion so just read others reviews.    … Expand
  39. Krombopulos
    Nov 3, 2015
    0
    All these new features that you have UNLOCK in order to play with, even though you already bought the game and some (even a minimum) of them have to be farmed for, in order to be able to use. But let's not be negative Nellies and try to farm instead. Oh wait! All events now take a ridiculous amount of time in order to be completed, requiring you to have no life whatsoever, in order toAll these new features that you have UNLOCK in order to play with, even though you already bought the game and some (even a minimum) of them have to be farmed for, in order to be able to use. But let's not be negative Nellies and try to farm instead. Oh wait! All events now take a ridiculous amount of time in order to be completed, requiring you to have no life whatsoever, in order to complete them. Oh, also 9 out of 10 events require you to have a party and a certain mastery (for which you have to farm in order to get - with a party lets not forget, which makes the whole thing a ridiculous paradox). You can now, no longer enjoy the game casually at your own pace and pleasure, but have to unavoidably rely on at least 2-3 other people in order to enjoy something that you paid 50$ for. I sincerely hope Anet dispatches these horrible gamewrecking additions to a once great game ! Till then I'm finding something else to play !… Expand
  40. DruidIsNerfed
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    Do not bother buying this crap. Constantly nerfing other classes to highlight the one their Devs play. And they are not even in charge of the nerfed class. Extremely unbalanced and biased. If you don't believe me, just read ranger section on their forum and see it yourself. Great game, horrible development.
  41. wyrmbud
    Nov 4, 2015
    1
    I am giving Heart of Thorns an unfavorable review for quite a few reasons. The first is that the game is miscalculating your progress in the expansion. Players are documented as randomly losing all progress in the expansion. This makes the game unplayable. The second is that I was promised raid content when I paid for the expansion. There are no raids now, the beta is an utterI am giving Heart of Thorns an unfavorable review for quite a few reasons. The first is that the game is miscalculating your progress in the expansion. Players are documented as randomly losing all progress in the expansion. This makes the game unplayable. The second is that I was promised raid content when I paid for the expansion. There are no raids now, the beta is an utter disaster and there will not be raids any time soon. This sort of outright stupidity on the part of Anet deserves legal action. I paid for a service I was promised and it was absolutely not delivered. WvW is broken and has been forever. Pvp is broken. (I used to very much enjoy both). Anet very clearly pushed way too hard to get this product out by deadline. Total garbage.… Expand
  42. Hepaista
    Nov 11, 2015
    0
    so much hype all year long for this? cant even finish the storyline without grinding for hours I loved gw2, but they lied to us. they said no grind we have never had to grind more...
  43. Shootsey
    Oct 29, 2015
    1
    Disregard the good ratings on the website. It's just fans who want to increase the population of their game for the sake of making it Slightly when it comes to doing events. Save your money and don't waste your time on this grindy and hellish expansion. Play it free.
  44. gw2fanatic
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    New Class elites are too powerful and ROFL stomps anyone playing non-elites in pvp and guess what there's no way to unlock elites for your class unless you spend $50+. GW2 pvp now becomes pay2win. Ranger class elite is an exception that doesn't synchronize with the base ranger at all. Many made their ranger to dps not to be a freaking cleric.

    The new WvW maps are empty on Blackgate, a    New Class elites are too powerful and ROFL stomps anyone playing non-elites in pvp and guess what there's no way to unlock elites for your class unless you spend $50+. GW2 pvp now becomes pay2win. Ranger class elite is an exception that doesn't synchronize with the base ranger at all. Many made their ranger to dps not to be a freaking cleric.

    The new WvW maps are empty on Blackgate, a T1 server and one of the most populated, even Eternal battleground is empty. Seems like most of the players lost faith in Anet and stopped wvwing, are in pve, or doing Halloween activities. Can't blame players losing faith in Anet's ability to fix problems as they arise when things like spawn trebs and catapults were never fixed on the old maps despite years of complaints, thieves gaining stealth from walls was fixed after 2 years then quickly reverted, and projectile attacks getting obstructed on flat ground continues to this day.

    People with small guilds lost all their influence and weren't compensated for the lost even if they spent real life money on gems then convert to gold to earn them. Personal guilds are now useless; to earn influence you need 3+ members and all the things you struggled to earn and built are gone.

    The story is heavily gated behind the mastery system and hero points which is slow and painful to earn. If you want to speed through the story to see how it goes what happens you can't because Anet took away the ability to choose how you want to play even if you paid them over $50. Now you have to progress how they want you to....slow, painful and step by step to artificially stretch out the expansion content.

    Overall this was one of the worst MMO expansion I've played. I pre-ordered GW2 based on their manifestos. I didn't know they were going to abandon it after GW2 launched. I'm done giving my money to NCSoft/Anet. No more GW2 expansion for me.    … Expand
  45. Big
    Oct 27, 2015
    4
    Wanted to play story mode first like I did with vanilla campaign. Sadly I'm forced to grind for tens of hours to unlock some **** mastery I want even use later on. I'm done 50 hours plus in it and I'm bored as hell. Do not spend 50 $ on it it is not worth it !
  46. percyhg
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    Don't bother. If you're into grindy Korean MMOs this is for you, otherwise steer clear. To make up for lack of content severe grind is now in place to slow you down from completing what little there is. The hardest content in the game Fractals Level 100 were finished day 1. To stop this happening to the whole expansion time gates are everywhere. Even the main story is behind a grind!Don't bother. If you're into grindy Korean MMOs this is for you, otherwise steer clear. To make up for lack of content severe grind is now in place to slow you down from completing what little there is. The hardest content in the game Fractals Level 100 were finished day 1. To stop this happening to the whole expansion time gates are everywhere. Even the main story is behind a grind!

    Masteries are a mixed bag between extremely overpowered and extremely underwhelming verging on awful thanks to nerfs from the devs to classes they don't play. All you need to know is that they love their Ele's and Mesmers. If you must play this pick that class and you'll be forever happy!

    Level design isn't enough to save this game and I don't look set to log in again any time soon, unless something happens to stop the tediousness of this expansion. So little to offer for it's price, big misstep here.    … Expand
  47. morroIan
    Oct 27, 2015
    4
    Grindy content designed to hide the fact that here is not enough content in the expansion to justify the high price tag (equal highest for any mmo expansion). The story is good, the map looks fantastic but is painful to get around and as I said the mechanics of the content are grindy to stretch out the time. The elite specs are also quite cool on the whole but are bug ridden, the expensionGrindy content designed to hide the fact that here is not enough content in the expansion to justify the high price tag (equal highest for any mmo expansion). The story is good, the map looks fantastic but is painful to get around and as I said the mechanics of the content are grindy to stretch out the time. The elite specs are also quite cool on the whole but are bug ridden, the expension was released far too early in this regard.… Expand
  48. wowrox
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    This is an example of an expansion done wrong. A business model that is displeasing to the customers and provides the players with the type of content that we want. It would have been nice if it included build templates but they said that will come soon.
  49. awesomebydlo
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    Grind Wars 2's mastery system and hero points are impossible to solo. Ascended gear is necessary for raids and Arenanet has made it a larger grind. The elite specializations are lackluster and the developers did not pay attention to community response during the betas. On the day of release, the game was horribly broken and it was practically impossible to continue the game's story becauseGrind Wars 2's mastery system and hero points are impossible to solo. Ascended gear is necessary for raids and Arenanet has made it a larger grind. The elite specializations are lackluster and the developers did not pay attention to community response during the betas. On the day of release, the game was horribly broken and it was practically impossible to continue the game's story because of broken NPCs and this was not fixed until a week after. The developers have also gutted core-professions such as Thief's Acrobatic line and require you to pay $50 to buy the expansion to have what they took back. The story is shorter than the Personal Story. There are only 4 maps in this expansion. It's honestly not worth the price tag.… Expand
  50. wowroxursox
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    Expansion without any meat on the bones. Gating measly content behind grindy masteries. Expansion without any meat on the bones. Gating measly content behind grindy masteries.
  51. ShinGlacier
    Dec 1, 2017
    0
    The game has a lot of potential, but ANet doesn't care about the players, they are more interested in their money instead.

    The game evolved since launch, that's true, but at quite a slow pace. The expansion stories were a lot shorter than the main one and a lot more convoluted. The new classes that were added with the expansions are a bit of a fresh air, but ANet doesn't know how    The game has a lot of potential, but ANet doesn't care about the players, they are more interested in their money instead.

    The game evolved since launch, that's true, but at quite a slow pace.

    The expansion stories were a lot shorter than the main one and a lot more convoluted.

    The new classes that were added with the expansions are a bit of a fresh air, but ANet doesn't know how to make them fit in the different aspects of the game (PVP, PVE, Raids).

    Spellbreaker from the last expansion doens't have a place in Raids, as an example. Scourge was so nerfed that it lost it's place in any raid for more than 3 months.

    ANet doesn't seem to test what they do and then it takes 2+ months for them to fix it.

    Classes are absurdly unbalanced in PVP, you can take an overpowered one and simply cheese you way to the top tiers.

    End game content (I include making new Legendary items, high level Fractals and Raid Wings in this category) are slow, very slow to come out. We had to wait 6 months for a new raid wing (had 4 before that), and ONE YEAR for 01 new fractal level. That is RIDICULOUS.
    The new legendary items are lackluster. As an example the new rifle and shield are simply garbage when compared to the previous ones. The medium legendary armor look absurdly crap, when compared with it's heavy and light counterparts.

    Now they decided and go heavy with the lootbox system. It was ALREADY present in the game, with Black Lion Chests, but now they decided to introduce Random Mounts for a price. When they are not random, which are 2 atm, they are extremely overpriced.

    Oh, and I forgot to mention that they slyly changed most of their servers to Amazon ones, giving most of their player base worse pings, while a minority ended up getting better pings, and they don't even acknowledge that.

    So yeah, that's it I guess. A game with potential, but huddled together with a greedy, lazy management.    … Expand
  52. Tenarus
    Apr 22, 2021
    2
    The phrase "never play on patch.-day" never fitted any game better then guild wars 2. Well and from patch-day I went to patch-week to patch-month, because not only are patches released incredibly buggy - they stay bugged for SEVERAL months if not years.
    Overall the storytelling is ok-ish. I've seen better, I've seen worse.
    The quality of the patches got worse and worse with every    The phrase "never play on patch.-day" never fitted any game better then guild wars 2. Well and from patch-day I went to patch-week to patch-month, because not only are patches released incredibly buggy - they stay bugged for SEVERAL months if not years.
    Overall the storytelling is ok-ish. I've seen better, I've seen worse.
    The quality of the patches got worse and worse with every release. The content feels like the same thing over and over again. Most things you do ingame are not rewarding at all. For players that spend a longer time ingame there is simply not enough to do. What do I mean by that? Let me tell you what my playtime looks like: Mondays I jump in the game, just to do the weekly raid reclears in like 2 hours (raids, that have been in the game for years. The release of the last raidwing is more than a year ago...) Some evenings I do a quick fractal run which cant keep my group entertained for more than 30 minutes. Farming at this point is pointless - you cant progress gear and I dont want to build duplicate legendaries. But Arenanet stated - against what players want - that there will be no more dungeons and as far as I know no more raids. Content draught which gets me to stop playing.

    And lastly the cashshop: What started off as some nice cosmetic rewards got a dump of putting new stuff in every other week just to earn more and more money. This isnt bad in itself, but selling CHAIRS? The shop got quite ridicculous...

    TL;DR So all in all: A game that started off good a while ago, but cant deliver any content that keeps you playing. To top all of this off the content that is currently in the game is severely bugged. Content in the game keeps you doing stuff for max ~4h/week if you clear all of it.    … Expand
  53. alceste007
    Jul 30, 2017
    3
    I used to love GW2 until HoT came out. The maps are horrible for casual players. The maps feel like they were designed for players in ascended / legendary gear. Bottle necks that artificially restrict movement through the maps based on mastery while giving daily objectives that you cannot even reach out. For casual players I just recommend moving to different game.
  54. Bulmarth
    Apr 24, 2017
    1
    First $50 for an "expansion", to me it's something that could be added on a patch but not in an EXPANSION. Elite specialization now beat core specs, and you need them in order to compete in PvP or WvW. They added viper gear wich is mandatory for condition build and you only get the mats in HoT zones, so if you are F2P or had the core game only you are on a huge disadvantage.

    The other    First $50 for an "expansion", to me it's something that could be added on a patch but not in an EXPANSION. Elite specialization now beat core specs, and you need them in order to compete in PvP or WvW. They added viper gear wich is mandatory for condition build and you only get the mats in HoT zones, so if you are F2P or had the core game only you are on a huge disadvantage.

    The other thing is that ANet promised a lot of things and didn't deliver nothing of it, like new legendaries or even more they told that elite spec would be a "side grade" or an alternative way to play each class, but it ended up been a "power creep" and being a upgrade of the classes, just look reaper and chronomancer.    … Expand
  55. furyunleashed
    Jun 22, 2017
    2
    Be aware. Depending on what you look for in a mmorpg, this game does not have a lot to offer. It is also arguable NOT an P2W-mmo, but I would beg to differ. EVERYTHING remotely advantegous for your character/account, you have to pay. More space? Pay. Rent armor. Rent weapons. Rent, rent, rent. There are even passes for areas in the cities which has all the necessary vendors combined, andBe aware. Depending on what you look for in a mmorpg, this game does not have a lot to offer. It is also arguable NOT an P2W-mmo, but I would beg to differ. EVERYTHING remotely advantegous for your character/account, you have to pay. More space? Pay. Rent armor. Rent weapons. Rent, rent, rent. There are even passes for areas in the cities which has all the necessary vendors combined, and guess what? You have to RENT that space too. And if you are looking for a PvP-experience, this is not the game for you. You have 6 attacks/skills to play with, rest are buffs/self-healing. For 10 attacks, you can swap with secondary weapon.

    The only thing which has some entertainment-value is the world-events. Bosses spawn, and many player gather around to kill it, though it's mostly just dpsing, dying, getting ressed, rince and repeat.

    Gw2 has few 'moments', and is much less than it gives itself out for.
    97 hours of playtime (with lvl 80).    … Expand
  56. brightwish
    May 8, 2019
    3
    The gliders were a nice addition, but the multi height levels made the maps too difficult to navigate.
  57. nemoo
    Feb 13, 2020
    0
    Dont play this game if you want a support team that cares for you, got 20000 gold taken away and when i showed them how i got the gold they just stopped responding to my emails really lazy support
  58. Miyammoto
    Aug 31, 2021
    0
    Guild Wars 2 could be the best game in the world, but there is no Russian localization. Arena net is the most greedy company in the world. They sell the game, they sell skins in the game, but they can't find 3 cents for Russian localization. This is discrimination against the ru-community.
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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 »