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. liefbread
    Oct 27, 2015
    8
    As promised I'm adjusting my review, although there are many things that feel like a departure from the Guild Wars 2 I'm familiar with, I no longer have an issue with their handling of Elite Specializations. Arenanet is a company that listens to it's players, if not being openly communicative about intended action. There's certainly a lot to love about the new expansion, and I hope afterAs promised I'm adjusting my review, although there are many things that feel like a departure from the Guild Wars 2 I'm familiar with, I no longer have an issue with their handling of Elite Specializations. Arenanet is a company that listens to it's players, if not being openly communicative about intended action. There's certainly a lot to love about the new expansion, and I hope after reading this you're willing to jump in yourself.… Expand
  2. Coryisthebomb
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    This review is addressing the fact that Guild Wars2: Heart of Thorns is not and should never be referred to as an expansion...... this title was the marketing method which the game's creator, Arenanet, used to trick players into buying their way past a paywall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Fallout 4 is out soon, going to refund this and grab that instead. Do no buy!
  4. papryk
    Oct 26, 2015
    2
    Heart of Grind......also raids, squad system and new legendarys to be added "later".... like 2 years wasn't enough for that xD
    Anet is a joke. Greed all the way...
  5. CannibalShinobi
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    Took me less than 3 days to unlock the new sub class fully for my Scrapper. Wasn't hard at all, didn't have to even complete all the challenges in the first 3 zones to do it. There is no grind, unlike most MMOs. Great casual fun.
  6. szspagna
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    If you like dynamic events, the expansion is for you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    For me the expansion just lacks... something.. what's it called... fun.
    Pretty bad when you'd rather do almost anything else than login on launch weekend for a new title.    … Expand
  8. Hadee
    Oct 27, 2015
    10
    Everything is great! Anet listened to community feedback and made huge improvements to the expansion less than a week after it went live.

    They are still continuing to improve and expand on what's already a solid and well made expansion.

    10/10
  9. Taynore
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Heart of Thorns? More like Heart of Grind. Everything is gated by either xp or hero point grind. Don't feel like I've got my money's worth in the expansion. And all of this was followed up by cripling economical nerf to my favorite core game content - dungeons.
  10. dreiji
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    as someone who mainly runned dungeons and fractals, the changes they made killed what i do in this game. and i bought the 100$ edition to support them, now i regret wasting my money.
  11. DiscoJacen
    Oct 26, 2015
    4
    Some really cool features, but way too many shortcuts taken...
    The mastery system is just a simple xp grind and just serves has a way to hinder your progression in the main story.
    Special masteries that were presented like "unique" (I'm looking at you Pact Mentor) are nothing more than just "get xp in the regular game". The story is cheap and would pass if it didn"'t try to shove in as    Some really cool features, but way too many shortcuts taken...
    The mastery system is just a simple xp grind and just serves has a way to hinder your progression in the main story.
    Special masteries that were presented like "unique" (I'm looking at you Pact Mentor) are nothing more than just "get xp in the regular game".
    The story is cheap and would pass if it didn"'t try to shove in as much social acceptance as possible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    When I first bought GW2 I loved the play your way design they did and that has now changed.
    Definitely a big downgrade to me from the original game, I had more fun before this expansion released.    … Expand
  14. kennyljs
    Oct 26, 2015
    4
    Mediocre. I wonder if the reviewers that gave it 10/10 even played the game at all. They gated off the expansion pack so that you need to grind for mastery so that you can progress through the map. In the core game, you could get to whatever area you want to go without any restrictions. The only problem is that the level 80 mobs will one hit KO your level 2 character in a level 80 area.Mediocre. I wonder if the reviewers that gave it 10/10 even played the game at all. They gated off the expansion pack so that you need to grind for mastery so that you can progress through the map. In the core game, you could get to whatever area you want to go without any restrictions. The only problem is that the level 80 mobs will one hit KO your level 2 character in a level 80 area. But that is how open the core game is. This expansion build huge walls around the map that you need to break down before you can progress. Yes, the graphics are stunning. The game play is smooth. Some bugs here and there, but not game breaking. The only thing standing in your way if you want to open the maps is that huge wall. A wall too huge for many players. The elites can go kitten off!… Expand
  15. DeathsPeak
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    Waste of money, even the free content like the changes to wvw were terrible.Thumbs up on killing wvw Arenanet, theres barely anyone even on and the map is just too big and dumb.. Its wvw not pve -.-
  16. Mortum1
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    Why so low? Welli played this game for about 1,000 hours, i got my money worth back many many times, but the HoTs expansion is a very grindy type of content, tehre is some fun here and there with fantastic visuals and music, but its core design is around grinding XP for masteries, something that sounded good in theory but the way it is implemented ended feeling nothing more than justWhy so low? Welli played this game for about 1,000 hours, i got my money worth back many many times, but the HoTs expansion is a very grindy type of content, tehre is some fun here and there with fantastic visuals and music, but its core design is around grinding XP for masteries, something that sounded good in theory but the way it is implemented ended feeling nothing more than just another MMO expac that you have to grind endless levels to get to the good stuff. Its not fun and its not , as always with Anet, rewarding!… Expand
  17. Badspazz
    Nov 22, 2015
    0
    This game has went hardcore. IF you want a fun mmo play wow. this game is **** full of failed events and failed everything. If you are a loser perfect gamer you should play this. If you are not a 15 hour a day gamer pick another game.
  18. season2003
    Oct 27, 2015
    8
    Great job on reviewing the Hero Points and the story gating. 250 points and level 1 mastery is much much much better than the crap you bring to us at the very beginning. Now I can set back and enjoy my elite spec while going through the new content. Cheers
  19. dwms1188
    Oct 26, 2015
    3
    I had to make an account to express my disappointment for this game. There was so much hype for an expansion after 3 long years of little content or fixes and honestly I was very much looking forward to it.

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

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

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

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

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

    Skip this heaping pile of **** for a month. If Anet pulls its head from their asses and makes some fixes maybe it will be worth it. I'm getting a refund.    … Expand
  20. Pangolins
    Oct 28, 2015
    9
    After the fix to Elite specialization gaining, the grind is essentially eliminated, it doesn't take ages to get the new trait lines, the maps are beautiful, the classes are great fun in PVP, and the story mode is intriguing, for someone who doesn't do much PVE I am impressed with the story and how massive the maps are.
  21. Zakooon
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    I'm done. What a waste, avoid at all costs or at least until it's at least half price. Little content, max grind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    I'm uncertain what Anet was thinking with this add on, but they certainly have created a mess :(    … Expand
  25. buranya
    Mar 24, 2017
    7
    HoT is in some ways a rebuild of Guild Wars 2. It adds a lot of content to the main game, new areas, new bosses and dungeons. It contains all that we expect from an expansion. But, and there's always one but, it is too expensive for what it gives. If you had already bought Guild Wars 2, HoT will cost you exactly the same as a completely new player, as it gives you the main game with theHoT is in some ways a rebuild of Guild Wars 2. It adds a lot of content to the main game, new areas, new bosses and dungeons. It contains all that we expect from an expansion. But, and there's always one but, it is too expensive for what it gives. If you had already bought Guild Wars 2, HoT will cost you exactly the same as a completely new player, as it gives you the main game with the buy.

    But, trying to focus on the expansion itself, it adds a lot of hours of fun. Also improves the living world, and the new dungeons can be a big deal to treat with. Graphically it keeps the same aspect as the original game. The new areas are full of quests, every area contains it's own coin, that lets you buy some materials, armors and weapons. The new dungeons gives you the chance to face probably some of the hardest bosses in the game.

    And, ANet kept the expansion going further on the storyline. It doesn't finish with the fight against Mordremoth, but there are new living world quests. There are also new Legendary weapons coming out.

    One of the bad aspects of it is that it doesn't keep the community playing commonly. GW2 had that issue: you can play it during 4 months but, given the time, you stop playing it, because you lost the intention to obtain things, you already got all you wished, etc. And HoT has exactly the same problem.

    Given those aspects this is why i decide to score it with a 7. HoT adds content, new story, dungeons, weapons and maps. It also adds some classes making the game more open to customization of characters. But, it isn't worth 50€ if you aren't a new player or you intent to give it a lot of hours (old player). If you know that you will, don't doubt buying it; it is made for you. But, if you're closer to a casual gamer, forget about this buy.    … Expand
  26. onegamer1
    Dec 12, 2015
    4
    tl:dr - HoT is the worst production of ANET's Guild Wars franchise so far. With HoT ANET embraced the repetitive; grindy; gold for cash free to play MMO model. Lack of creative design is evident in an otherwise aesthetically beautiful game.

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

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

    The good:

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

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

    The bad:

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

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

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

    Please check reddit, google etc. to know what to expect from HoT before spending money and time.    … Expand
  27. themangoose
    Jun 14, 2016
    0
    Not worth the money. They sold us a box of promises, but when we opened it there were only likes. Half of what was promised with the expansion has been cancelled in lieu of more gemstore updates. Raids ruined the game as the only way to get top armor gear now is behind only one game mode. The game has chanced and you're going to hate the community now. They sold out to make all ofNot worth the money. They sold us a box of promises, but when we opened it there were only likes. Half of what was promised with the expansion has been cancelled in lieu of more gemstore updates. Raids ruined the game as the only way to get top armor gear now is behind only one game mode. The game has chanced and you're going to hate the community now. They sold out to make all of the WoW transfers happy. WvW is a joke and they promote match fixing.… Expand
  28. Manwithtwohands
    Dec 30, 2015
    5
    Beautiful environments, animations and voice acting.
    Horrible game-play design.
    Seems the company has no ideas for longevity besides endless grind. Earn 1 million xp to talk to this frog vendor. Then talk to the frog vendor and see all his stuff is locked until you earn 3 million xp or some nonsense like that. You definitely get the impression the company making this game either hates    Beautiful environments, animations and voice acting.
    Horrible game-play design.
    Seems the company has no ideas for longevity besides endless grind.
    Earn 1 million xp to talk to this frog vendor. Then talk to the frog vendor and see all his stuff is locked until you earn 3 million xp or some nonsense like that. You definitely get the impression the company making this game either hates players or just doesn't care anymore.    … Expand
  29. Adrenalin
    Jan 3, 2016
    0
    Cash Grab Wars 2: Heart for Gems - This expansion is nothing but an insult to its playerbase. Way too less new content, dumb destroying of old content (dungeons, wvw, class balancing) and above all, the complete destruction of ingame rewards (especially liquid gold drops) in order to force players to GEMS->GOLD. The whole game is completely pointless these days because everythingCash Grab Wars 2: Heart for Gems - This expansion is nothing but an insult to its playerbase. Way too less new content, dumb destroying of old content (dungeons, wvw, class balancing) and above all, the complete destruction of ingame rewards (especially liquid gold drops) in order to force players to GEMS->GOLD. The whole game is completely pointless these days because everything meaningful gets accomplished faster with a McDonald's job rather than actually playing the game.

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

    This mindless greed of Anet will be the downfall of the company and the game. And that is well justified.    … Expand
  30. TMachine
    Feb 5, 2016
    4
    If you pay attention it becomes clear how A-net is running this business. I don't feel like writing another long wall of text, we've done plenty of those on official forums.
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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 »