Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

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

Mixed or average reviews- based on 981 Ratings

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

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

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

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

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

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

    PvE: HoT brough intresting new maps. The main issue with them is finding one that actually has people in it. A large majority of the time you will be waiting on these timed events and looking in the LFG tool to find other people. Most of the events go on for a long time! minimal 40mins-2 hours depending on the map. Classes are suffering here in being allowed into groups because of pvp kneejerk balance and a large majority of players refuse to play with certain classes. Lastly, anet have started to make changes that reward unskillful play and punish playing well. An example of this is the new adjustment to druid; which made building healing power to heal your allies less effective at healing than not taking any healing power.    … Expand
  4. Zulke
    Oct 26, 2015
    2
    You ask for end-game?You got it ! Grindfest and time sink awaits you! Gated traits/waypoints,paywall fractals and more.Dont forget mass crashes. Arenanet way, nothing more,nothing less.
    P.S From reddit with love
  5. TheGameQuotient
    Oct 25, 2015
    5
    It's become increasingly clear that ANet have lost touch with the original philosophy behind GW2. Heart of Thorns offers none of the heart and soul present in the base game, instead replacing it with grindy mechanics and gimmicks to sink players' time into rather shallow content.

    This isn't to say GW2: HoT is all bad, however. The level design is, as always, gorgeous, and they've    It's become increasingly clear that ANet have lost touch with the original philosophy behind GW2. Heart of Thorns offers none of the heart and soul present in the base game, instead replacing it with grindy mechanics and gimmicks to sink players' time into rather shallow content.

    This isn't to say GW2: HoT is all bad, however. The level design is, as always, gorgeous, and they've continued the painterly art style from the original game. The result are some very compelling visuals in the new game zones. However, the layout can make zones feel smaller than they are. There are no more wide-open spaces to roam, and zones sometimes feel claustrophic as a result.

    The visuals have been coupled with absolutely solid sound design. New skills and enemies look and sound fantastic, and the voice acting through the story is great as well. The score is absolutely wonderful. For this I'll give them credit: they certainly know how to make the game look appealing.

    The combat as well feels great. Enemies are more difficult, without lazily just upleveling and reskinning mobs as you'll find in most other MMOs. This requires greater skill on the part of the player to take down mobs, especially veteran and champion enemies. No more mindlessly pressing "1" until everything is dead. Heart of Thorns demands you understand your class and your build, and for this I commend the game designers.

    However, no amount of visuals or even smart mob design can hide the fact that core gameplay mechanics that made the base came so refreshing have been critically altered. Make no mistake: HoT feels nothing like vanilla GW2. The first instance you'll run into this new design choice is when you begin to experiment with your class's new elite specialization. You'll find that to fully unluck the spec line, you'll have to accrue a total of 400 "hero points" spread throughout the new zones. Hero points throughout Tyria work as well, but its the expansion points that you'll be scratching your head over. To unluck most hero challenges, in other words, to even approach the challenge, you'll need a corresponding "Mastery" skill. Mastery skills are the new way ArenaNet seems to have chosen to gate content, and its a rabbit hole I hope we don't go any further down.

    Mastery points essentially work to gate content via "hard gating" mechanics like walls, death traps, and otherwise locking areas of each zone in otherwise inaccessible locations. Mastery points work like old skill points, ie they appear on the map to be interacted with to acquire. However, many of these points are also gated behind other Mastery skills. The end result is that you'll be running around every map trying to pick up whichever mastery and hero points you are able, then grinding exp to level up new masteries. There are Mastery points in the beginning expansion zone, ones that you'll encounter almost immediately after stepping through the portal from Silverwastes that you'll initially have no idea what to do with. The whole experience feels rather poorly designed, and nowhere on the map is it explained what skills you need to reach which point. Ultimately it makes for an incredibly confusing and frustrating experience.

    These gating mechanics wouldn't even be so bad, had they been properly explained in-game, if it weren't for the massive exp grind involved. The Mastery system are essentially new levels, and you'll gain new mastery levels in order to allocate mastery points after leveling up in the traditional manner. However, the entire Maguuma Mastery tree requires a very large amount of exp which can't be gained anywhere else than in the expansion zones. With only four zones available you're going to find yourself repeating the same point defense or escort events over and over again. This is especially troublesome for story advancement, requiring long breaks of repetitive grinding between story instances. Ultimately it kills immersion and I can't help but feel the arbitrarily high exp requirement was simply ArenaNet's way of stretching out content.

    You'll also find that content is no longer fully soloable. Certain hero point challenges involve killing champion mobs with a time limit. Grouping does occur naturally in GW2, but its still frustrating to wait for a PUG to show up. Its also troubling thinking about leveling alts after the zones begin to empty of players. Full solo-ability was a great feature of the base game, so why remove it?

    All-in-all, GW2: HoT feels like a classic case of "if its not broken, don't fix it" where ArenaNet seems to have tried reinventing the wheel in an already successful game. The content gating feels out of place in a game that pioneered open world exploration and a "do whatever you want" gameplay style. It's not that Heart of Thorns is bad, its just that many of the design decisions they implemented don't seem to fit the base game, leaving a feeling that this expansion hasn't been an effective extension of the Guild Wars franchise.    … Expand
  6. digSerenity
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    Not even a week before the nerf hammer hits and they cater to the people complaining about hard content after asking for it. Excellent job. Definitely better this way than to allow things to settle and for people to get used to playing with and against everything new.
  7. lIttle_shroomy
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    I'm giving HoT a preliminary 10 based on what I've seen so far, and will update the review in a few weeks once I have actually experienced more of the things included in this expansion.

    As someone who has played a lot of gw2 but had more or less stopped playing barring the living story updates I was looking forward to check out what was new in the expansion. I think anyone who    I'm giving HoT a preliminary 10 based on what I've seen so far, and will update the review in a few weeks once I have actually experienced more of the things included in this expansion.

    As someone who has played a lot of gw2 but had more or less stopped playing barring the living story updates I was looking forward to check out what was new in the expansion. I think anyone who enjoyed/enjoys the original guild wars 2 should enjoy this expansion.

    The new maps and aesthetics are beautiful and the overall feel/design seems very well thought out. There have been complaints regarding the new mastery system being used to increase the grind/gate the content, but it doesn't feel that way to me, it seems more that the mastery and elite spec systems just finally give me as a player something to aim towards in the game that has been missing since reaching lvl 80.

    With previous updates I would generally just burn through the content in a few hours and then that was it. I would put the game back on the shelf and wait until the next update. With this expansion I can choose to work towards specific mastery skills that will enable me to further explore/unlock different areas of the pve maps, and I'm happy about not being able to experience everything all at once. The maps actually feel as if they require exploring and contain secrets to be discovered which I am looking forward to doing!

    Anyway aside from the pve maps/story missions (very nice story missions so far) I still need to check out the new wvw borderlands, guild halls (seems like fun + gives our guild more of a purpose), raids and at some point level up a new revenant character! + loads more stuff I'm sure.

    So to sum it up, it seems this expansion contains a ridiculous amount of content/hours of entertainment for your money, and for now that's clearly worth 10/10!    … Expand
  8. emomartian
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    Lots of new content, thrilling story - this is exactly what I was waiting for. I don't know why people are complaining about the gated content - all of the most important content is immediately available, and progression is account-wide.
  9. LandorGonlow
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    Tons of new content, spectacular meta events!! Graphics and Sound are amazing. There is a low to like about the new expansion. The new specializations still need a bit of balancing but I am sure that will be worked out over the next few weeks. Leveling mastery seems a bit slow but also not horrible as many people are saying. I am actually glad that some content is "gated behind masteries"Tons of new content, spectacular meta events!! Graphics and Sound are amazing. There is a low to like about the new expansion. The new specializations still need a bit of balancing but I am sure that will be worked out over the next few weeks. Leveling mastery seems a bit slow but also not horrible as many people are saying. I am actually glad that some content is "gated behind masteries" otherwise unlocking these new abilities wouldn't seem very rewarding. The story is awesome tons of guild wars 1 throw backs and lots of exciting progression on the newest elder dragon. I highly recommend this game for new players as well as for existing. A few tweaks that need to be worked out but overall , an awesome job!… Expand
  10. Huddi
    Oct 29, 2015
    9
    Story: 10/10 - Great story that beats the one of the core game by far, especially in cutscenes.

    Open World: 10/10 - Beautiful and layered maps, including PvE, WvW and sPvP. New Profession Abilities: 9/10 - Main issue here is balancing, especially for Revenant (op to make people like). Accessibility: 9/10 - This score was reevaluated after ArenaNet listened to the voice of the    Story: 10/10 - Great story that beats the one of the core game by far, especially in cutscenes.

    Open World: 10/10 - Beautiful and layered maps, including PvE, WvW and sPvP.

    New Profession Abilities: 9/10 - Main issue here is balancing, especially for Revenant (op to make people like).

    Accessibility: 9/10 - This score was reevaluated after ArenaNet listened to the voice of the community, including my own one. Thank you. (Before the adaptations, it would have taken ages to unlock new specs for all professions)

    Repeatability of Content: 9/10 - This score was reevaluated. While I previously felt forced to repeat content, after ArenaNet's decision to make the story more accessible, it feels more like a free choice. I am strongly in favor of the changes.

    Server and bug management: 9/10 - There have been close to no downtimes. There were some bugs, but this is to be expected. One point was deducted for bugs in instances of the main story line, which led me to spend quite some hours achieving absolutely nothing.

    > My current evaluation: 9.3/10

    > All in all, this has been a great experience so far. The launch was very smooth from a technical perspective. In terms of philosophy, the expectations of the community and of the developers were not aligned. ArenaNet decided to listen to the feedback of the playerbase, for which I am very thankful. Whether you are a fan of large-scale or small-scale PvP, organized group content in PvE or simply a farmer or explorer - Heart of Thorns provides it.

    > Still to determine: New skins, raids, cash shop.    … Expand
  11. SpugNation
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    A brilliantly meaty expansion that sets the stage for Guild Wars 2 for years to come. Many of these "bad reviews" base things on the fact that there is a progression. People want rewards now without any gameplay, which would be poor design. Heart of Thorns has layers and layers of rewards and goals, and it can be played and enjoyed by everybody from solo casuals to hardcore achievement hunters.
  12. RayHawk
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    I've been absolutely blown away by this expansion in a wonderful way! My wife and I have been playing it together as much as possible since launch a few days ago and it's been some of the most fun I've ever had. So many new things and ways to progress without invalidating any of your existing progression is just awesome. Tons of new achievements, collections, and story -- it's everything II've been absolutely blown away by this expansion in a wonderful way! My wife and I have been playing it together as much as possible since launch a few days ago and it's been some of the most fun I've ever had. So many new things and ways to progress without invalidating any of your existing progression is just awesome. Tons of new achievements, collections, and story -- it's everything I was hoping for and more! Absolutely loving this game!… Expand
  13. Fharfanin
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    This expansion blew my mind! It is gorgeous! Maps are so beautiful and very fun to traverse, especially when you learn gliding, mushroom jumping etc I haven't had that much fun to just explore in ages :) Story is amazing and absolutely shocking, filled with fun challenges. I love the new difficulty of mobs, while they don't have huge amount of HP, they do hit hard! and new mechanics isThis expansion blew my mind! It is gorgeous! Maps are so beautiful and very fun to traverse, especially when you learn gliding, mushroom jumping etc I haven't had that much fun to just explore in ages :) Story is amazing and absolutely shocking, filled with fun challenges. I love the new difficulty of mobs, while they don't have huge amount of HP, they do hit hard! and new mechanics is very nice! Camera action mode proved to be th one thing i wished they added from the start, can't play without it!

    New specializations are so much fun as well, great animations, great feel to them. Some people expected to get them straight at the start, but it is unreasonable to expect to unlock elite spec on day one, however that was still possible for some vets. If you just play the game, then unlocking masteries and getting Hero Points comes naturally without feeling any repetition as there are a lot of different ways to get those.    … Expand
  14. Boterkoekje
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    This expansion is the smoothest to launch, and extremely high in content. It's got a bit of grind yes.. BUT THATS FOR 1 CHARACTER. After that it's on all your characters. If you spread it there is nothing wrong with it. The map is huge, and a tad confusing. But that makes it new and not the same lineair maps we are used to.

    Hero Points are hard to get IF you make a total new char, but    This expansion is the smoothest to launch, and extremely high in content. It's got a bit of grind yes.. BUT THATS FOR 1 CHARACTER. After that it's on all your characters. If you spread it there is nothing wrong with it. The map is huge, and a tad confusing. But that makes it new and not the same lineair maps we are used to.

    Hero Points are hard to get IF you make a total new char, but should you have it all on day 1? If you just play this game for 24 hours you will most likely have unlocked 80%+ of your character and enough masteries to keep you happy.

    ooh and did I mention, YOU CAN GLIDE. But not in Tyria sadly :(

    Finally this game is a bit more difficult, No more brainless zombies who attack but stay still.    … Expand
  15. Eric_tries
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    Heart of Thorns is the first expansion for Guild Wars 2 and adds alot of new content in bulk with more to come over the next move.

    But is the new content any good? Yes , most certainly! The new maps, are beautifully crafted and engaging to run around in and to explore. And i am talking about jawdroppingly beautifull. The first time i entered "Auric Basin" at nightfall i was greeted by    Heart of Thorns is the first expansion for Guild Wars 2 and adds alot of new content in bulk with more to come over the next move.

    But is the new content any good? Yes , most certainly!
    The new maps, are beautifully crafted and engaging to run around in and to explore. And i am talking about jawdroppingly beautifull. The first time i entered "Auric Basin" at nightfall i was greeted by a swarm of fireflies floating between long vines and treebranches, which was truly enchanting and brought the need to explore up in me, just to find more of those locations.

    The new mastery system adds a new mentroidvania feel to it. Which give the player new goals and something to achieved after 80.

    The new Story Missions, while still having some issues at the point of this review, are enjoyable and deepen the bond to your character and his "posse". But roaming around in the jungle doesnt just make your fellow NPC posse more interesting, the jungle is full with new races and interesting creatures which makes the stay worthwhile and brings alot of enjoyment. Storywise i dont want to say too much, but the new overarching Story is intense and great, being rather grim at some places and showing you the despair of your troops makes you want to save this world from the new rising evil!

    And the new "Elite Specializations" and the new Class add alot to the Gameplay. New skillshots and buffs/debuffs combined with the new enemies in the jungle makes the combat so much more exciting and enjoying than it was before. If you are a fan of Guild Wars 2 or action MMOs in generell you will surly enjoy this.

    But whats bad?
    Some of the contet (such as skill challenges) is "hidden" behind masteries which take longer to acquire, while this wouldnt be to bad it is nowhere communicated when hovering over a skillpoint. So it sometimes happens that you embark on a journey to get to a skillpoint only to realise that there is nothing to earn. Which renders travelling there pretty much useless (werent it for the beautiful surroundings).

    Also the Elite Specializations require alot of Skillpoints to unlock (400). While i agree that its a little to much, i like the experience traveling through the jungle and slowly learning my new abilities and traits. Which makes finally earning your new Spec and Skin so much more of an achievement.

    So in conclusion, is it worth a try, is it a game for me? Yes it is, and well, i dont know. If you want to do everything as fast as possible and crawl through the content you might be wrong here, because getting the masteries and skill challenges might fell like a drag to you if you dont enjoy the surrounding world and gameplay. Guild Wars 2 is a game to sit down, relax and just to hop into a fantasy world and enjoy yourself while feeling that your journey is worth something. And that is truly wonderful.    … Expand
  16. VeyVey
    Oct 26, 2015
    5
    Positive:
    The new zones are beautiful. We are getting raids. Guild halls are already in the game as of right now. PvP will be expanded with more competitive leagues and prestige items that are PvP exclusive. Action combat mode is great.
    Negative: ANET officially abandonded dungeons a while ago, but now they finished them off completely, by nerfing rewards into the ground. No new    Positive:
    The new zones are beautiful. We are getting raids. Guild halls are already in the game as of right now. PvP will be expanded with more competitive leagues and prestige items that are PvP exclusive. Action combat mode is great.

    Negative:
    ANET officially abandonded dungeons a while ago, but now they finished them off completely, by nerfing rewards into the ground. No new fractals, just a couple of new instabilities for 51-100. Fractal rewards are even worse than before. Golden fractal skins (again) rely on RNG one way or the other. Ascended gear is more expensive, even though raids are adjusted to this gear tier, which makes playing different classes in high-end PvE a lot harder. Especially since gold income was nerfed across the board for anything except farming SW/DT and "playing the TP". Elite specializations require a siginificant amount of time to unlock and the journey is (subjective opinion) very tedious and underwhelming. It is just open world PvE, with the usual mindless zerging. Parts of the personal story are also locked behind certain mastery levels. For players like me, who hate anything that's not challenging and revolves around zerging, this makes both elite specializations and the personal story line very frustrating.

    Neutral:
    Story. It's an MMO so there's only so much you can expect in terms of storytelling. Legendary precursor quest lines are only marignally cheaper than buying the pre (at least right now).

    Bottom line:
    For players who usually avoid open world PvE and would like to spend most of their time in either dungeons/fractals or personal story instances and who enjoy playing several characters in high-end PvE this expansion is a slap in the face.    … Expand
  17. Mister_Loki
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    For me is it the absolute best designed MMO experience I ever had, in over 10 years of playing several Online Games. Arena Net has taken Guild Wars 2 to the next level and with HoT you have so much to do. You can explore the beautiful Maguuma-jungle in (for now) 4 new Maps with hundreds of events, you can go for the Elite Spec of your class, can start the legendary journey for yourFor me is it the absolute best designed MMO experience I ever had, in over 10 years of playing several Online Games. Arena Net has taken Guild Wars 2 to the next level and with HoT you have so much to do. You can explore the beautiful Maguuma-jungle in (for now) 4 new Maps with hundreds of events, you can go for the Elite Spec of your class, can start the legendary journey for your Precursor and so on, and so on.
    BUT you have to enjoy gaming and exploring - If you are a person who (why ever) want have all the content seen in one day, want have all new items on the first day, then you maybe should not play HoT (And not downvote it!)    … Expand
  18. procyonpaw
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    I personally think this is a well-done expansion with a few blips. While the environments are pretty, the story is nice, and the enemies quite challenging (in a fun way), the elite specializations and skills needed to progress through the jungle are a bit too grindy to get. That being said, I highly recommend this to anybody wishing for a genuine challenge in the traditional MMO genre.
  19. quip7
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    This expansion addresses so many issues that the game. The story is much improved over vanilla and the mobs in the open world actually have a pulse(ie they have a decent amount of challenge) which is a really good thing. The world is beautifully designed and the platforming elements are top notch and some of the best I've ever seen in video games.
  20. JellyFishcat
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    What can I say?.. This game is absolutely fantastic and it's first expansion just proved that again! Thank you Arena net for this great addition to Tyria. New maps really are something special, a work of art. Gliding through jungle is just .. something else, it feels so natural, they really nailed it here. I love the story and cut scenes are just out of this world - intricate, stunning,What can I say?.. This game is absolutely fantastic and it's first expansion just proved that again! Thank you Arena net for this great addition to Tyria. New maps really are something special, a work of art. Gliding through jungle is just .. something else, it feels so natural, they really nailed it here. I love the story and cut scenes are just out of this world - intricate, stunning, gorgeous!

    Love love love new dynamic events, a bit confusing at the start, but once you figured out what is what and what to do, then it is just exciting to do them, fills up my masteries pretty good, rarely even notice that i need to change to a new mastery :D

    Special thanks to Macleine Diemer and Lena Chappelle and everyone who worked on the sound team - music just adds that atmosphere of each zone fabulously!    … Expand
  21. BlueDraco
    Oct 25, 2015
    5
    Heart of Thorns is an antithesis of the core Guild Wars 2 experience.

    What you receive here is a hardcore package made for people who are on board with the concept of excessive grinding. A concept that was fed to the whole MMO community for years and was very successfully ignored by ArenaNet when they first released Guild Wars 2 vanilla. Instead of open, living, breathing spaces that    Heart of Thorns is an antithesis of the core Guild Wars 2 experience.

    What you receive here is a hardcore package made for people who are on board with the concept of excessive grinding. A concept that was fed to the whole MMO community for years and was very successfully ignored by ArenaNet when they first released Guild Wars 2 vanilla.

    Instead of open, living, breathing spaces that could be explored from any angle you wanted and missions you could do in any order but accessible to you at any time you desired - you receive a narrow grindfest that holds your hand and limits your options. Maybe even worse, it limits your imagination by constantly placing in front of you signs that tell you what you cannot do, instead of what you are able to. Gone are the days of being rewarded generously for any activity you chose to participate in and showering you with options of activities. Now you have a set list of tasks that will lead you to another set of tasks.

    Locking new subclasses (elite specialisations) behind any kind of grind is a tip of the iceberg that foretells what the rest of the content looks like. Even when you agree to spend your time on unlocking such a base functionality of the game, by the time you will gain access to those subclasses, you will clear the new zones. A couple of times.

    Looking at the whole package from a distance makes me wonder how many new and fresh things do players actually gain access to by purchasing the expansion. Some features were specifically created for players able to invest huge amounts of time into them (raids). Some were designed to be unlocked over time as a sort of longterm account progression (mastery system). With only the new class (Revenant) accessible without any additional hooks, most of the content looks like an excessive time sink created to hide an overall lack of original or engaging features.    … Expand
  22. Havanahbana
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Gorgeous. Really just gorgeous. So different from the 'pick up quest, hand in' linear style. And what a world. Such detail. I could take screenshots and hang them up all over my house. Just wow. And polished. Streamline, professional and without hick ups after launch. Amazing.
  23. Artarion
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    A fantastic expansion to Guild Wars 2. I've been playing it for hours and honestly cant find many faults, the story is engaging, the combat has been given a much needed bump (along with mob AI), and adding new ways to transverse the maps has added a new breath of fresh air to the game (screw mounts).

    I cant help but partly agree which some of the lower scoring reviews concerning the    A fantastic expansion to Guild Wars 2. I've been playing it for hours and honestly cant find many faults, the story is engaging, the combat has been given a much needed bump (along with mob AI), and adding new ways to transverse the maps has added a new breath of fresh air to the game (screw mounts).

    I cant help but partly agree which some of the lower scoring reviews concerning the gated access to the new Elite Spec and some parts of the expansion, as a casual player who has very little time to play the game I can see how this could be off-putting. However as the Mastery system is account bound which means it affects all your characters, also whats the problem with challenging group content?

    I don't think I've had this much fun with my friend (yes only two in a party and we're managing the content fine) during a release of an MMO to date.    … Expand
  24. Cjcrew
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    This is fairly simple,They give us new content we pay for it.,Just because you could get the Elite specializations from start in the beta weekends doesn't mean you won't have to "work" for them now that the expansion is out people need to stop whining about that and also for the people that thought 4 maps where too little i can say that atleast verdant brink alone is the size of 2This is fairly simple,They give us new content we pay for it.,Just because you could get the Elite specializations from start in the beta weekends doesn't mean you won't have to "work" for them now that the expansion is out people need to stop whining about that and also for the people that thought 4 maps where too little i can say that atleast verdant brink alone is the size of 2 queensdale with 3x times of content to go through.Nothing else i have to say the expansion is great and of course it has some flaws but it's anet's first expansion ... please people get your **** together and help make it better don't conspire to make bad reviews to get anet's attention on something very specific you personally don't like jesus christ.. just go and play the game enjoy it.Forget the "i need to get everything unlocked asap" mentality and just go and have fun! cya in the Maguuma Jungle.… Expand
  25. Lacus
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Great smooth launch, new content has lots of things to do. Huge maps and fun enemies. This is new level 80 content and the difficulty scales accordingly. There is finally some real sense of danger when exploring the jungle with contested waypoints and stronger mobs. There is a solid sense of character progression with the elite specialization and overall progression with Mastery levels.Great smooth launch, new content has lots of things to do. Huge maps and fun enemies. This is new level 80 content and the difficulty scales accordingly. There is finally some real sense of danger when exploring the jungle with contested waypoints and stronger mobs. There is a solid sense of character progression with the elite specialization and overall progression with Mastery levels. Leveling your mastery does not feel like a grind at all, instead you get immersed by all the events and story going on in the new areas.
    The gliding mechanic is a real joy.
    The maps feel much denser and look gorgeous. The new quality of life features should not have come any later. The new class introduced in this expansion, the Revenant, plays smoothly and nice animations, full elite spec unlocked after 2 days of launch.
    Music playing in the new maps is done amazingly.

    For the complainers who find it too hard, Queensdale is still accessible using waypoints (may cost up to a few silver to teleport though).    … Expand
  26. Caleca
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Lots of new content, huge new maps, a really nice new profession and finally a sense of progress over time. Mmos are all about character progress and as long the work to make my character better and better is fun, I wouldn't call it grind. From what I've seen until now, it seems it will be a lot of fun. Kids nowadays just wan everything instantly. I guess they would be happy if they couldLots of new content, huge new maps, a really nice new profession and finally a sense of progress over time. Mmos are all about character progress and as long the work to make my character better and better is fun, I wouldn't call it grind. From what I've seen until now, it seems it will be a lot of fun. Kids nowadays just wan everything instantly. I guess they would be happy if they could max every character in their account in one week. Another week after that they would be complaining they are bored because there is nothing else for them to do. Whiners gonna whine.… Expand
  27. Kyten
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    The content is amazing and beautiful. People tend to complain about a so called grind but it's really sad to see how people are unwilling to do little effort to get anything out of the game there are people who already unlocked 3 full specs withing days of release. For someone that plays gw2 for more than 2 years I have to say well done ANET you outdid yourselves.
  28. wapsky
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    The new zone are really beautiful and despite what everyone is saying the game has a good progression. The game itself is well optimized and have yet to see a major bug or non functionality of game mechanic.

    over all a good expansion and much needed content to an ever impressive game.
  29. Sharkfarts
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Beautiful new content all around. Lots to do right off the bat and plenty to look forward to. Growing pains, yes, but those are inevitable with so much new and changed content.
  30. MaesterBest
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Everything is exactly as good, or even better than i expected. People are complaining it is a grind, but that is becouse they don't know masteries are account bound. All the Hero Points locked behind masteries aren't locked for your alts.
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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]
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