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. jhippocratic42
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    The overwhelmingly negative user reviews represent an entitled mass of gamers who think that destroying those who have worked so hard to put out this masterpiece (and trust me, it is nothing short of that) will somehow "force their hand" and make them change the game to give them whatever they want the instant they want it. Progression was noted and to be expected, and yet still playersThe overwhelmingly negative user reviews represent an entitled mass of gamers who think that destroying those who have worked so hard to put out this masterpiece (and trust me, it is nothing short of that) will somehow "force their hand" and make them change the game to give them whatever they want the instant they want it. Progression was noted and to be expected, and yet still players will resort to stooping so low as to give dishonest reviews of an otherwise fantastic game over their own pettiness. Trust and believe that if the bulk of those who played this were representative of these reviews, this game's ratings would look far better than they do now. Such a shame.… Expand
  2. bluesnacks
    Oct 26, 2015
    5
    5/10

    Positive: Story, New zones

    Negative: The stupidest grinding system ever, in a game where the makers have actually said "we don't like grinding."

    This is not worth a 10. Anyone trying to convince you that it's a perfect 10 is lying to you knowingly.
  3. phaedrux
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    Gorgeous world design, enormous amounts of new content, engaging 'elite' extensions to each class. Narrative aspects improve immensely on what the core game offers- the story is great, well voiced, well written, interesting.

    The new mastery system will take time to, well, master. So far nothing has felt unfairly time consuming, from my perspective as a moderate/casual player. The new    Gorgeous world design, enormous amounts of new content, engaging 'elite' extensions to each class. Narrative aspects improve immensely on what the core game offers- the story is great, well voiced, well written, interesting.

    The new mastery system will take time to, well, master. So far nothing has felt unfairly time consuming, from my perspective as a moderate/casual player. The new zones are fun, the events and enemies can be difficult. Sometimes forcing players to rethink their approach and change the way they've been playing in order to progress.

    The expansion doesn't offer itself up politely on a silver platter, but instead rewards the curious, the intrepid, and the adventurous. The jungle is a dangerous place and it might kick your ass a few times- but wow is it fun.

    Highly recommended, most fun I've had in a game in years.    … Expand
  4. Nuri
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    The first expansion for the massive Guild Wars 2 world brings plenty of new things to the table. There is a bit of controversy about the new mechanics, specifically the need to train Elite specializations and Masteries, both of which take a bit of time. Now for a casual player like me, there is no problem in that - Guild Wars 2 is still the casual player's heaven, where it does not matterThe first expansion for the massive Guild Wars 2 world brings plenty of new things to the table. There is a bit of controversy about the new mechanics, specifically the need to train Elite specializations and Masteries, both of which take a bit of time. Now for a casual player like me, there is no problem in that - Guild Wars 2 is still the casual player's heaven, where it does not matter if you play 25 arenas or just 3, as you still have fun and get enough rewards for doing just that.

    Pros:
    Beautiful landscapes
    Immersive questline for HoT
    Interesting concept of daytime/night-time quests
    Elite professions
    Gliding (although it does get a bit infuriating when you miss that one ledge and fall to your death)
    New Guild Missions
    Guild Halls

    Cons:
    Slightly grindy (but you can prevent that by playing with friends/guildies)
    New Prof = everyone is revenant (Think of WotLK amounts of DKs)

    i am enjoying my time in Maguuma so far and I am very happy about how this expansion turned out.    … Expand
  5. plexon21
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    I am already loving this addon. Great story,ine and some very amazing maps with a huge variety and a lot of verticality. Totally worth checking out.
    ArenaNet did a great job with this expansion. The only problem I have with it are all the people whining about not being able to finish all of it in the first weekend.
  6. mattmatch
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    For an expansion the amount of additional content extremely exceeds my expectations. Lots to do, and no way to accomplish it with even just a few days. This is what's great about MMOs, I'll be coming back for months.
  7. Boabed
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Heart of Thorns is an excellent first expansion for Guild Wars 2. The gorgeous new maps, mastery system (giving long term rewarding progression), legendary precursor crafting and guild halls - to name a few of the features - make it a blast to play.
  8. purple_llama
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    I've been a long time fan of the Guild Wars series, and Heart of Thorns is an excellent continuation of the series. It provides new things to do in both old and new maps, with the new maps being a crazy 3D experience that feels like you'll never actually run out of nooks and crannies to discover.

    There's some long term progression added in here as well, you can work towards masteries to    I've been a long time fan of the Guild Wars series, and Heart of Thorns is an excellent continuation of the series. It provides new things to do in both old and new maps, with the new maps being a crazy 3D experience that feels like you'll never actually run out of nooks and crannies to discover.

    There's some long term progression added in here as well, you can work towards masteries to improve your abilities - gliding, bouncing, even some in the old maps for working on creating legendary items and other things. All of that is account bound so you only have to earn it once. You also don't need it to get to the new content, I've walked all the way to the last map with only two of them just begun, and I think I didn't even need them - but gliding is just too much fun to not do it!

    There's also character progression - instead of a slew of new classes or an increased level & gear cap they've added a way to have your character specialize in a line that changes their role a bit. It does take a bit of working towards but I've been working on other stuff for the few days since launch and I've almost fully unlocked mine already anyways.

    Looking forward to what comes next!    … Expand
  9. theironsavage
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    This review is an personal opinion from three years of playing the base game. If you are a player that's been around before year one you would of notice how the game has changed.
    Year one there was no wardrobe , LFG, or rewards for dungeons or pvp.
    DG rewards been nerf. so what? They been inflation factories for the longest time making gold worth less and less. too much grinding. so    This review is an personal opinion from three years of playing the base game. If you are a player that's been around before year one you would of notice how the game has changed.
    Year one there was no wardrobe , LFG, or rewards for dungeons or pvp.
    DG rewards been nerf. so what? They been inflation factories for the longest time making gold worth less and less.

    too much grinding. so what? stacking in a corner and stealthing pass mobs is your idea of rewarding? There is no grinding its just as easy has before but actually requires you too interact with people.

    only three maps. so what? they are gigantic and easy to get lost in them. everything does try to kill you at night but that made me blow off the dust on my soldiers gear and equip range weapons to get around.

    too hard!! REALLY THIS IS TOO HARD TO PLAY? PEOPLE WHO SAY ITS TOO HARD MUST OF NEVER LEARN HOW TO PLAY THE GAME, JUST CHANGE YOU GEAR AND BUILD.

    yes maps been locked off but I prefer quality over quantity.

    The maps are easy to move around, just have to remember the roads. If you have a guild or group of friends every thing would be easy for you.

    If you are a veteran and loyal fan of the series I HIGHLY RECOMMEND BUYING
    New to Guild wars 2- you must learn there is more then DPS    … Expand
  10. IEatCabbage
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    The good:
    -The maps are huge and you can clearly see right off the bat that Anet did put tons of effort in creating these new maps. My personal favourite is Auric Basin just because how calm and peaceful it is
    -the new mechanics such as gliding and other masteries that introduce new ways to play the map and new mechanics to fight some of the bosses on the new maps. These masteries at    The good:
    -The maps are huge and you can clearly see right off the bat that Anet did put tons of effort in creating these new maps. My personal favourite is Auric Basin just because how calm and peaceful it is
    -the new mechanics such as gliding and other masteries that introduce new ways to play the map and new mechanics to fight some of the bosses on the new maps. These masteries at first 2 levels are easy to unlock and are all that’s required to access most of the new maps. (personal story requires 2-1-1-1 in masteries). Once they are unlocked, they are unlocked for every character on your account.
    -The personal story is done to perfection compared to core personal stories and living world stories. The voice acting is at its best, the character development is great that you see what each character is like, and cutscenes are just amazing. The lore they give us in these personal stories are just more than what we could ask for.
    -The mobs have great new mechanics to them and this makes combat and boss fight actually exciting. I am sick and tired of core world boss fights, for most of these bosses you just stand there in one spot and auto attack it until its dead. Here you actually have to move around, knowing when to use cc, and see the boss’s attack animation. This makes the mobs actually challenging unlike when Orr was first released where the mobs would swarm you and follow you until you are dead with no actual mechanics.
    -The core world is still populated with tons of players, its almost like the expansion had no effect on core Tyria at all, while the new maps are actually filled with people from what I’ve seen so far (with exception of Auric Basin, this map is pretty much empty at all times). Why is this good? In other games, I’ve seen countless times where a new expansion comes out and the core world literally dies.
    The bad:
    -The elite specialization is locked behind 400 hero points to unlock and this is frustrating for many people. There is no reason for this specialization to be locked behind this much HP. They really need to address this issue. I would lower the HP from the new maps from 10 down to 5 and change the requirements from 400 down to 200.
    I would give this expansion an 9/10 so far and if they would lower the HP for elite specialization I would give this game a 10/10 and the rest I have to see when raid comes out    … Expand
  11. AnonyLol
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Its a great expansion. Very very fun to play, and the most important part, it fully integrates into the existing world (so not like wow where everyone moves on to a new area and the existing areas get completly empty). All the people who are giving bad reviews are just crying because of some problems which will be fixed by arenanet soon.
  12. bobrysh
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    its still good
    great Expansion the launch went smoothly for me and I have no major issue. Its everything I wanted in an expansion its harder and a lot of fun. The map design and music is just amazing! The new masteries are fun to level up and it's really nice to see myself become more powerful over time as I complete the masteries.
  13. Phoenix75
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Great story, Brilliant map design which requires work. Great new events system which lacks players at the moment. Anet have clearly put a lot of hard work into this expansion and it shows, from the mastery system, guild halls finally The game is however plagued by a lot of lazy people as shown in the game's forums who want everything handed to them on a plate with little effort. These areGreat story, Brilliant map design which requires work. Great new events system which lacks players at the moment. Anet have clearly put a lot of hard work into this expansion and it shows, from the mastery system, guild halls finally The game is however plagued by a lot of lazy people as shown in the game's forums who want everything handed to them on a plate with little effort. These are the trolls that are bombing Metacritic with bad reviews.These are the same people in a months time will be complaining that there's no content. I would ignore the trolls and let them throw there toys out of there prams as they usually do. The game isn't without it's problems have experienced a lot crashing to desktop, but I'm sure these will be ironed out. Great job on Heart of Thorns Anet.… Expand
  14. Firstblood2605
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    Really love this HoT and its content so far. I love exploring Round the Magumma jungle, which is seperated into many levels, you can do gliding, bouncing mushroom to travel around. The Elite Spec is fun too, although you must have 400 heroes points to unlock all of its skills ( kind of grinding, i believe ANET will fix it soon ), but you can play your Elite while you dont unlock allReally love this HoT and its content so far. I love exploring Round the Magumma jungle, which is seperated into many levels, you can do gliding, bouncing mushroom to travel around. The Elite Spec is fun too, although you must have 400 heroes points to unlock all of its skills ( kind of grinding, i believe ANET will fix it soon ), but you can play your Elite while you dont unlock all skills. The masteries is really interesting, you sont have to grind to get enough XP, just relax, do some events, and you will notice that your XP bar is full. The new Guld system, guild halls, new PvP mode : stronghold is toooo amazing too. But i cant refuse that there are some issues. For example : the new wvw was too large and complex, they should find a solution for that. And the player who always plays WvW will be hard to find HP to unlock their Elite skills. It's unfair.
    For those who rate low score for this game : you should reconsider about that, because its too soon to says this game is bad, the HoT has just been released 3 days, and the devs still find a way to make it be smoothier. Beside that, their still tons of content that ANET hasnt released yet, like : Raids, Legendary weapons, Legendary armor. We should keep calm and wait for thei Action.
    Overall, i love this Expac, and i dont find any reason to rate it lower than 9.    … Expand
  15. Blanc0
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Heart of thorns, the very first expansion for an amazing game that has been going strong for years now. Anet tried to do things differently then most mmo's and not raise the lvl cap or add better gear, cause who wants to grind for more gear cause their old max gear has become useless?

    Now Anet did add a way to further ''lvl'' your character, in the form of masteries and elite    Heart of thorns, the very first expansion for an amazing game that has been going strong for years now. Anet tried to do things differently then most mmo's and not raise the lvl cap or add better gear, cause who wants to grind for more gear cause their old max gear has become useless?

    Now Anet did add a way to further ''lvl'' your character, in the form of masteries and elite specialisations. Masteries are unique abilities like Gliding, Bouncing mushrooms or even learning new languages of new civilisations. These masteries are gained by gaining xp and are account wide, they add a new and exciting way to improve your account and are sure to keep you busy for a while. They require a fair amount of xp, but so did levelling a new character all the way to lvl 80 in the core, so its a far amount in my opinion. There are some masteries required to progress the story, but after Anet removed 1 mastery requirement they really don't slow you down a lot. (They even show you what masteries you will need for which story chapters, so you can prepare for that). Within masteries there are 2 major lines, the Heart of Thorns masteries and the Central Tyrian masteries. The lather being designed for older content, they add small bonusses.

    The other way to lvl your characters, are elite specialisations. Elite specialisations add new abilities to existing classes and they all get 1 new weapon. The initial unlocking cost of the trait line could be considered a bit steep, but compared to the old levelling in the core game it is pretty fast and rewarding. The new elite specs feel fresh and unique, have great visuals and really make a change.

    Next to the new ways to lvl your character there are 4 new maps, which are absolutely stunning. Lots of verticality makes gliding useful and fun, bouncing mushrooms also give a whole new way of exploring the jungle. The new foes have great movement, like a giant dinosaur rolling over its side or giant flying wyverns with major fire attacks. The maps are great to explore and as you progress your masteries you can reach new places and find even more hidden spaces. The maps house lots of event chains and there are large scale meta events that require the map to work together. Newly added are adventures, mini games that offer a great xp boost! The jungle maps, like Auric Basin, become even more gorgeous at night!

    There are many changes to the guilds as well, the major change being Guild Halls. A feature long requested by the community and now Anet delivered. With as few as 3 guild members you can claim one of 2 halls. These halls offer upgrades in the form of buildings and bonuses. The customisation of these halls is pretty endless once you have a scribe (new crafting profession) to build you all the decorations. The initial price to start building a tavern/mine/workshop is high at the moment for the smaller guilds, but this is mostly due to everyone wanting to unlock the building and larger guilds having a bigger budget, this will need some time for the market to settle. All in all as time goes by everyone will be able to build the upgrades and make the guild hall a personal home for their guild. The guild hall also adds a new treasury system where all members can donate the required materials for future upgrades.

    There are lots of changes in Heart of Thorns and the way it is set up it will require some time to unlock every new addition to the core game Guild Wars 2. Just like it took time to lvl from 1 to 80 in the core game, masteries and elite specs are just a new and fresh way of levelling without raising the lvl cap or adding a new gear tier. It will keep you busy and it will keep you exploring every nook and cranny of the new amazing jungle maps. Those who love Guild Wars 2, will love Heart of Thorns.    … Expand
  16. thedarkess
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    People asked for end game content and they got expansion that focuses primarily on end game. We've got challenging content and no-faceroll PvE, character progression beyond max level, increadible story telling and most stunning zones I've ever seen. And yet people complain they can't get everything 1st day of expansion! Hypocrites.
  17. JamEngulfer
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    I think Heart of Thorns is a brilliant expansion. The main thing I've noticed with it with respect to gameplay is that it is much harder than regular open world, with only 2 enemies being able to kill you outright. The jungle is meant to be hardcore endgame content and it really shows in the difficulty.

    The maps are beautiful and extremely varied from area to area. Although some areas    I think Heart of Thorns is a brilliant expansion. The main thing I've noticed with it with respect to gameplay is that it is much harder than regular open world, with only 2 enemies being able to kill you outright. The jungle is meant to be hardcore endgame content and it really shows in the difficulty.

    The maps are beautiful and extremely varied from area to area. Although some areas appear claustrophobic due to the fact that well, it's a jungle, when you reach a point where you can glide down or jump up to another level, you get a perspective of just how massive the maps are. However, there are some areas that are extremely large and give a massive sense of scale.

    I like the new mastery system that's been added. The progression feels nice and you only need level 1 or 2 in some of them to progress the story and these requirements make sense (e.g, needing gliding to actually traverse the map properly before you start the second story step). I've seen a lot of people that want all of the masteries immediately, acting like they are some sort of awful content gating system. These are the same people that would complain about no long term endgame progression if the masteries were easy. The masteries are extremely similar to levelling a normal character to level 80. If you think about it, we should be completely used to 'content locking' as the majority of the game is locked away when you are level 1. You have to level up to access higher level content. We are all used to this system and I don't see why people aren't equating the normal levelling progression to the masteries system. It took me 4 months of playing to reach level 80, so I don't see why it shouldn't take me the same amount of time to max out my masteries.

    Anet delivered on exactly what they promised. Long term hardcore endgame content. People asked for that and that is exactly what they got.

    I for one think it's great and that they produced a great expansion that lived up to the hype.    … Expand
  18. atatahir
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    This expansion is providing me the best gaming experience I have ever had, surpassing even my Vanilla WoW experience.
    First, the expansion is huge I mean really huge. There is so much to do that it is becoming difficult to focus on one thing a long.
    Like the base game of Guild Wars 2 this expansion also focuses on exploration and providing a journey in PvE. The Zones that you journey    This expansion is providing me the best gaming experience I have ever had, surpassing even my Vanilla WoW experience.
    First, the expansion is huge I mean really huge. There is so much to do that it is becoming difficult to focus on one thing a long.

    Like the base game of Guild Wars 2 this expansion also focuses on exploration and providing a journey in PvE. The Zones that you journey through are massive and unlike anything I have ever seen in an MMO. The story that you experience during your journey is the best story telling in Guild Wars 2 so far. The story delivery, and pacing is excellent too.

    Guild Wars 2 introduced a new Horizontal progression system in this expansion which I consider to be the best progression system in any MMO right now. Unlike other MMO's Guild Wars 2 did not raised the level cap or introduced a new tier of gear to grind. Instead, in this expansion we learn account wide abilities called Masteries that allow our characters to do more things, things like gliding and learning languages.

    All new zones are level 80 and you can travel and explore zone to zone right from the start. The progression through the masteries and zones feels very organic and enhances that adventuring feel has been missing in MMORPG's. You feel your character grows and learns as you adventure through the alien landscape of new zones.

    The enemies and mob/encounter design in the new zones is very diverse and very engaging. It looks like there have been a lot of AI improvements too. This makes the new zones the most challenging zones in Guild Wars 2. If you are venturing solo in the new zones there is real danger and you will have to think about what skills you are using, this make for very engaging exploration in the new zones.

    Legendary precursor crafting has also been added in this expansion. Currently, 23 legendary weapon scavenger hunts have been added so far. A new legendary armor set and 2 new legendary back pieces are also being added.
    The precursor crafting provides players with another epic journey that they can take. One example, In order to craft the staff one of the steps included the following:
    - Get a Raven egg
    - Take care of the egg, help incubate the it until it hatches
    - Take care of the baby Raven, feed it train it how to fight, how to fly etc.
    - Teach the Raven to transform into some kind of energy that can be attached to the staff.

    After these steps and much more you will have a legendary staff. On top on the staff your Raven, which you took care of since it was an egg, would be perched. When you go in combat, the raven will fly and then dive towards the staff turning into some form of energy that will imbue itself in the staff and you will be able to see that energy flowing through the staff. When you do a ranged attack the energy in shape of a Raven will shoot from your staff and when it hits the target you will see the energy turning into your Raven and attacking the target.

    I am not really sure why people are complaining about 'grind' for Hero point. Hero points is the currency needed to train new skills. I think most people probably do not realize that in the expansion the hero points awards have been increased 10 folds.
    You only need 19 to 40 challenges in the expansion. You cannot 'grind' hero points and can only get them by doing unique hero challenges. Hero challenges involve either going somewhere and pressing 'F' or fighting a Mob. In the first two zones for example, there are 22 hero points only 2 of which require high level mastery. Some Hero challenges are very challenging and I can understand people not wanting to do challenging content to get skills, but complains about 'grind' to get them is beyond my understanding, unless playing the game is now considered a grind.

    There is so much more I could write, but I have to go back and play more Guild Wars 2.    … Expand
  19. Guildwars1996
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Guild wars 2 heart of thorns brings things this community have wanted for a long time hardcore content with the new maps and raids in a few weeks. Things to work for the masteries and elite specs that aren't grindy at all. The story to be good its not just good its fantastic.
  20. monzesandrea
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Story = 9 / 10 anet and blizzy are second to no one.
    Audio = 9 / 10 best audio and environment sound ever found in a mmo.
    Gameplay = 8 / 10 : quite hard to master but a great step forward from the core game. Replayability = 10 / 10 : there are so many things to do that i ' m quite scared. xD Farm = 6 / 10 cause ONLY for the first time you need to farm: REMEMBER that Mastery point are    Story = 9 / 10 anet and blizzy are second to no one.
    Audio = 9 / 10 best audio and environment sound ever found in a mmo.
    Gameplay = 8 / 10 : quite hard to master but a great step forward from the core game.
    Replayability = 10 / 10 : there are so many things to do that i ' m quite scared. xD
    Farm = 6 / 10 cause ONLY for the first time you need to farm: REMEMBER that Mastery point are UNLOCKED FOR EVERY PG YOU HAVE when you get them !

    Be honest : I wonder how is possible to give this awesome work 0 / 10.... lol    … Expand
  21. doodlefish
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Anet have done us proud with this update. The world really feels alive with so many different things going on and so many new mini stories to find I will be running around and discovering new things for a long time. I wasn't sure about the idea of introducing gliding and having so much verticality in the maps when I heard about it but actually it works incredibly well and is a lot of fun.Anet have done us proud with this update. The world really feels alive with so many different things going on and so many new mini stories to find I will be running around and discovering new things for a long time. I wasn't sure about the idea of introducing gliding and having so much verticality in the maps when I heard about it but actually it works incredibly well and is a lot of fun. I feel like I know my way around the first 2 new maps now but I'm still constantly finding new areas and bits that I have never seen before. I just wish they would add gliding into the old maps as well!!

    I have tried playing other mmos but ever since I first started guild wars 2 they feel so clunky in comparison. This expansion will definitely keep me entertained for a long time cos there is so much to do!!    … Expand
  22. renji1337
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    I would give this a 10. I like the game, i like how there is multiple things to do and that they wont be done in 1 day, (they take 2-4weeks for the average player) and that the game is fun. There are so many people playing that it feels like GW2 is the top MMO there is!
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. eugenevelazquez
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    A fantastic expansion for Guild Wars 2, plenty to do and the additional elite specs and revenant class play great. Ignore all the one star reviews complaining about it being a grindfest as this is simply not true. Although it is true it will take time to unlock masteries it at no point ever felt like a grind all the new events and monster are well varied and numerous and I myself neverA fantastic expansion for Guild Wars 2, plenty to do and the additional elite specs and revenant class play great. Ignore all the one star reviews complaining about it being a grindfest as this is simply not true. Although it is true it will take time to unlock masteries it at no point ever felt like a grind all the new events and monster are well varied and numerous and I myself never felt like it was getting stale. There is plenty of new content and it is obvious it has been given a good amount of polish. There are very few bugs at the time of writing this review and those that were present were patched very quickly. I highly recommend picking it up if you are a fan of what the base game of Guild Wars 2 offers and enjoy challenging and engaging content. A solid 10/10.… Expand
  26. 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
  27. scottmjones
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    Having read other reviews on here i thought i would correct alot of the negative reviews, first of all i will start by stating that i wasnt a fan of the pve during the first 3 years of gw2 i played the game solely for wvw, my opinion has changed massively during HOT the pve doesnt require "grinding" there are numerous HUGE multi layered maps that you can explore with gliders, by jumping onHaving read other reviews on here i thought i would correct alot of the negative reviews, first of all i will start by stating that i wasnt a fan of the pve during the first 3 years of gw2 i played the game solely for wvw, my opinion has changed massively during HOT the pve doesnt require "grinding" there are numerous HUGE multi layered maps that you can explore with gliders, by jumping on mushrooms or by using portals, there are hundereds of events that take place on these maps that easily give you enough different content to get your characters the traits needed and also to provide tens of hours of entertainment alone. WvW has had a massive overhaul with new desert borderlands and new systems to adress issues with ganking of dolyaks that are being defended. It seems to me that the people moaning expansion just want a game with no challenge, i urge you to ignore such negative and moronic reviews and to try the game yourself, I for one am extremely surprised by the depth and large amount of content that came with the expansion. I'd also like to commend anet on the launch, unlike other mmorpg launches and expansion releases I had no lag, no huge grouping of players causing issues and have found no bugs up to this point… Expand
  28. Bunkhead
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Lots of stuff to explore. Don't expect to finish this in one weekend and move on. It adds content to almost every part of endgame (dungeons are the only exception, but fractals are suppose to take their place).

    The expansion is set up like a Metroid or Zelda game in that you will see stuff that you can't get to or a fight that needs a certain skill to make it easier to do. This makes    Lots of stuff to explore. Don't expect to finish this in one weekend and move on. It adds content to almost every part of endgame (dungeons are the only exception, but fractals are suppose to take their place).

    The expansion is set up like a Metroid or Zelda game in that you will see stuff that you can't get to or a fight that needs a certain skill to make it easier to do. This makes the content feel less linear, and you can't finish one map before you move to the other. The makes you look forward to unlocking levels in the game. It makes the progression feel more meaningful, and less like a game of arbitrary numbers. Unlocking gliding or the ability to use bouncing mushrooms feels a lot better than getting 19 more strength so that you can kill every mob just a little faster.

    I like the new class specializations. In most MMOs, you would get a new skill that either upgrades or replaces the one you have. In HoT, you get a whole group of skills and weapons that compliment your character. You can swap to these at will (out of combat), and the specialization does not negate the base classes skills.    … Expand
  29. 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.
  30. 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
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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 »