Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm

 PC
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 1640 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,240 out of 1640
  2. Mixed: 224 out of 1640
  3. Negative: 176 out of 1640
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  1. kckkryptonite
    Mar 14, 2013
    5
    As a long time fan of StarCraft and Broodwar, I was naively hoping for a better campaign than what WoL was. I figured it could have only been better, but I was wrong. I guess as long as DBrowder is at the helm, you're going to get the most cliched snooze fest imaginable.

    Where it fails most is what made StarCraft such a memorable and great game. The story. I cannot begin to explain how    As a long time fan of StarCraft and Broodwar, I was naively hoping for a better campaign than what WoL was. I figured it could have only been better, but I was wrong. I guess as long as DBrowder is at the helm, you're going to get the most cliched snooze fest imaginable.

    Where it fails most is what made StarCraft such a memorable and great game. The story. I cannot begin to explain how weak and underwhelming the story and dialogue are. Gone are any sort of characterization or suttle narrative undertones. There is no heart, no personality, no life, and no atmosphere. Gone is the once articulate, conniving, Mengsk who has been reduced to a babbling old fool, the fiery Jim Raynor who is now simply there to be a damsel in distress. Kerrigan's actions and motivations are consistently questionable; there are a lot of failed attempts at evoking emotion, but frankly, you just don't care about her or Jim anymore. The flavorful and immerse world that was StarCraft has once again been destroyed by $$BlizzActivison$$. What the hell happened to the storytelling? The heart? The universe? All I see now is a empty shell.

    /rant

    The actual gameplay is fine, the UI good, and the missions fun though repetitive at times. I'm reviewing mainly the campaign/single-player here. The multi-player is polished and the visuals are smooth, if you don't care about the campaign at all (and just shelled out $40 for a few new units), then I'd give it a 7/10 or 8/10. Blizzard could've continued StarCraft's legend if they gave two about the lore and could've been the best at that, but I guess they wanted to focus on eSports and follow in the shadow of LoL.    … Expand
  2. stitchmouth
    Mar 16, 2013
    6
    While the gameplay overall is solid, this expansion never does anything to make itself stand out. The plot I actually found less offensively boring than WoL, but you don't get much variety (terran or protoss levels to break things up with), and so far there's no known secret levels, and not much in the way of interesting easter eggs. The campaign also comes in fairly short on the clock,While the gameplay overall is solid, this expansion never does anything to make itself stand out. The plot I actually found less offensively boring than WoL, but you don't get much variety (terran or protoss levels to break things up with), and so far there's no known secret levels, and not much in the way of interesting easter eggs. The campaign also comes in fairly short on the clock, with most people being able to knock it out over the course of a weekend. Also, if battle.net goes offline while you're playing, you lose any single player achievements you may have gotten for that map during that play session. Blizzard has the talent and money to produce better quality than this.… Expand
  3. Tacoss23
    Mar 14, 2013
    7
    I'm a SC2 Fan, and personally liked WoL a lot. Now, I play SC2 for the REASON it's supposed to be played, which is a competitive RTS and E-sport. That's the strength of this game and the sole reason the first one lasted 2 decades. If you judge Starcraft by its campaign then you are not very smart, it's like going to eat steak at red lobster....they serve it, but you'd be a fool to go thereI'm a SC2 Fan, and personally liked WoL a lot. Now, I play SC2 for the REASON it's supposed to be played, which is a competitive RTS and E-sport. That's the strength of this game and the sole reason the first one lasted 2 decades. If you judge Starcraft by its campaign then you are not very smart, it's like going to eat steak at red lobster....they serve it, but you'd be a fool to go there specifically to eat one. That aside, the improvements to Battlenet, and Blizzard's desperate attempt to keep up with the current Moba E-sports has made this expansion a good improvement over WoL in so many areas that the list is too long to mention. The Balance of the game is off, of course it would be of, it's a new expansion, but frankly I didn't expected to be this bad considering the extensive Beta and good feedback they got. So, all in all, is a good expansion, good improvements, a poorly written campaign (considering the wonders you can do with the Starcraft universe), with several of the units being potentially overpowered for the first few months and some other minor technical improvements. Not a 10 in my books, even though I'm a fan, but definitely not bad at all.… Expand
  4. therealgamerevo
    Mar 12, 2013
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I'll try to be as unbiased as possible, while explaining my opinions, and emotions, of the newest expansion for Blizzard. Warning minor spoilers not that it matters. I want to say I've been a fan since Warcraft of Orcs and Humans, but I've seen a laziness in the developer for the past several years that has degraded the quality of the games. I began to be worried with the announcement of the Starcraft 2 Trilogy. My initial thought was that it was an attempt to grab some extra cash, though I denied such a thought of my beloved blizzard for years. Now after the catastrophe that is Diablo 3,the bulky, and borderline fluff. that was Wings of Liberty, I have come to the conclusion that my original assumption is true Blizzard has become the next bioware they in it for your money. The entire campaign is a vain attempt to kill a man who should have died in the first campaign for the sequel, I.E, the title being wings of liberty sounds like the dominion would fall right? Yet despite the forshadowing the first campaign lends to the player, there is no development from the big xel naga threat other than the fact that kerrigan must fight it. NOTHING contributes to the overarching story of the series, they even try to make it seem worth 40 dollars by adding seven missions where the whole purpose is to test out two different strands of a zerg mutation. These fluff missions show how little blizzard cares for their products anymore as they have lost all pretense of even trying to create something worthwhile an unique. Playing these missions was like revisiting the same dungeon for the tenth time in Dragon age 2, boring easy and repetitive. Finally in the campaign though I did not even notice till the very last mission, which was extremely anticlimatic and could have been any other level in the game, I noticed that the zerg campaign has no troop transport. Overlords are now nothing better than a moving supply depot, especially without the evolution to overseers. I'm sure the multiplayer is fun and highly competitive, it was the redeeming quality to the bulky WOL, but guess what, getting a couple new units and maps for a game i already own is not a expansion. I paid 40 dollars just to be jerked around and I've had it with blizzard trying to make money of their poor deluded fans. If I wanted that particular experience I would have bought a call of duty map pack, FOR TEN DOLLARS! They were my ivory tower, and now they don't give a damn,… Expand
  5. Sakkaku
    Sep 8, 2014
    5
    It's World of Warcraft but in space! *yawn* is a good summary of how I feel when I play this game

    Gamplay: Same as Wings of Liberty, nothing notable to point out. Great RTS, it is losing it's shine though, Story: This is where everything sort've downfalls. If you are tired of these "WoW writers" then get ready for the same old hubub when it comes to this game. Nothing original, not    It's World of Warcraft but in space! *yawn* is a good summary of how I feel when I play this game

    Gamplay: Same as Wings of Liberty, nothing notable to point out. Great RTS, it is losing it's shine though,

    Story: This is where everything sort've downfalls. If you are tired of these "WoW writers" then get ready for the same old hubub when it comes to this game. Nothing original, not even close to following it's roots. Lots of retcon, lots of plot holes, lots of cliche dialog and generic actions scenes.

    After putting the original Star Craft on the back burner for so long, they lost everything that made a game unique. Now it feels like a "WoW" set in space of a story line everywhere you turn. Diablo 3 is another good example of this. WoW just bleeds into everything they do now, churning everything into a gray mush of mediocre game play and story.

    The casual game play is fun, but after 10 hours the game is now up a creek relying on the multiplayer, which has potential, but probably won't be fully engaging till the last expansion comes out. By then, SC2 will be outdated and forgotten because that what happens when you split a game up into 1/3's and make people wait 4 extra years to see the end of a story line.    … Expand
  6. Rtheom
    Mar 29, 2014
    5
    As much as I love Starcraft, they've turned it into a super cheese fest where the only viable strategy is to go one unit and go one unit hard. Gone are the days of variety and the epically big battles in place of small, 5 minute smashfests. Their attempt to e-sport Starcraft more than it already was really took the heart out of it.
  7. Expospeed
    Dec 3, 2014
    6
    Heart of the Swarm is a decent expansion. More story. New units.

    1. Graphics: 7/10 - detailed unit models, good relative to other games on the market
    2. Gameplay: 7/10 - great interface and satisfying micro/macro control
    3. Multiplayer: 8/10 - competitive and fun
    4. Story: 2/10 - more shallow story, not interesting

    Overall, average expansion.
  8. VidyaBum
    Mar 22, 2014
    6
    I expected it to be worse than WoL, but not this bad.

    Characters have this horrible division where you feel like half of them are Zerg(Dehaka, Zurvan, Abathur) and the other half behave like humans in a Zerg disguise(Izsha, Zagara). Izsha is particularly painful to listen to as every single line she has just reeks of a human being and not a Zerg. Put together with Abathur, it's really    I expected it to be worse than WoL, but not this bad.

    Characters have this horrible division where you feel like half of them are Zerg(Dehaka, Zurvan, Abathur) and the other half behave like humans in a Zerg disguise(Izsha, Zagara). Izsha is particularly painful to listen to as every single line she has just reeks of a human being and not a Zerg. Put together with Abathur, it's really glaring and kills the atmosphere entirely. Also why doesn't the Leviathan talk?! It's a Zerg creature, thinking and understanding, not a machine!

    The story is extremely lackluster. If WoL had lots of side missions with their own small reward and one 10-mission main quest(which was ultimately a fetch quest of 6 missions and then just fighting Kerrigan and a few missions devoted to harming Mengsk's reputation), HotS is literally nothing but one main mission: assemble the Horde-I mean the Swarm. It gets very old very fast. Too simple a plot, it's also not really helped by the side missions since very few of them bring any sort of plot advancement. Ultimately, you spend 20 missions assembling the Swarm, then you (spoiler alert, watch out this'll blow your mind you'll never see it coming!) kill Mengsk. Which means that you literally had all this buildup about Hybrids and the world's end in WoL and no follow up at all in HotS where it's just Kerrigan being mad at Mengsk and getting stronger so she can kill him...
    It's not even lackluster, it's just lame in comparison.

    Music is still meh. Still can't recall a single tune, apart from WoL's cutscenes. And even those were not that memorable, despite being well-conceived along with their cutscene. When the cutscenes music appears in HotS, it's nice but unfitting.

    Cutscenes are really great, all of them, but since none of them are ever in a good story, they just aren't that likeable.

    Then you've got the gameplay. Well, just like WoL, very little strategy, tons of spamming keys to get resources and units ASAP. Lots of exciting fun, almost no thinking, and a game that ultimately fails to be interesting, despite being entertaining until a certain point.
    The new units are fine, Zergs get a base defense/base siege unit akin to the Terran Siege Tank. Nothing really different, if you liked WoL you will like this.

    But really ultimately, if you liked the story in WoL and the gameplay was just ok and not particularly satisfying to you, or not at all satisfying if you like real strategy, HotS will feel like a step down in every aspect to you.
    The missions, the way they're chosen, the units and ways to upgrade them, the characters, the plot, the storytelling, the diversity of missions, which was one of the strongest points of WoL and added a lot of value to a game with virtually no strategy, all of that is either the same, or worse. 90% of the diverse missions of WoL are just copypasted here. Characters, mission choices, upgrade missions which appear here instead of credits to get unit upgrades, plot value, they're all clearly one hard step below Wings of Liberty.

    It's still playable just like the last one, and still has value as a game or a story, but it's so pathetically weak an expansion, compared to its predecessor. It also, unsurprisingly, does absolutely nothing to try to help the lack of complexity and lack of strategy of Starcraft as a whole(yes, I'm counting SC1 and BW).
    Just another super-fun-super-fast game with poor strategic elements and a story that will make you yearn to play WoL for the first time again.    … Expand
  9. blueshift09
    Sep 23, 2014
    6
    This game has gone down a bit in quality since Wings of Liberty.

    Game mechanics have been tweaked slightly. There isn't much of a story in the cut scenes between missions which is quite disappointing. Previous instalments of Starcraft used to have good stories.
  10. Fugazi
    Jun 22, 2014
    7
    Campaign and story was a huge disappointment, WoL was much better not even mentioning BW which are is different league.

    Other than that it is still good SC, so multiplayer is superior to anything in the market (RTS wise).
  11. NegativeNine
    Sep 30, 2015
    6
    --Campaign rating only

    I must say: The story writing is awful. Don't want to spoil anything here, just state that it's really, really awful. And the gameplay isn't much better. The whole game plays like Warcraft 3 with dumbed down tactics. While in Warcraft 3 you actually had to make decisions and also had more options, like a wider variety of upgrades, tactics, importance of    --Campaign rating only

    I must say: The story writing is awful.

    Don't want to spoil anything here, just state that it's really, really awful. And the gameplay isn't much better. The whole game plays like Warcraft 3 with dumbed down tactics. While in Warcraft 3 you actually had to make decisions and also had more options, like a wider variety of upgrades, tactics, importance of terrain, more decisions around your hero etc. you just have a dumbed down husk of that left for Heart of the Swarm.

    You run around with your group of units, including hero, and kill stuff. That's it. All the time. Everywhere.

    The mission design is annoying: It's so HEAVILY scripted that everything plays all the same every goddamn time. There's no real AI here. Just to a minor degree. Everything else is just scripted like hell. Even if you're not supposed to destory an enemy base they'll tell you to not do so and after you're done destroying the base you're not allowed to win because *hurr durr* you must still play all remaining events as we intended you to !

    Complete all tasks and the game ends the mission for you. You don't get to decide whether you want to continue until all enemies are dead. The game doesn't care what you'd like to do and is fun to you. Ressource management is as catastrophic as ever: Turbo mining with 3 workers per ressource node is still a thing instead of either a wider variety of ressources or a slower, but more enjoyable game, like Starcraft 1 was, with less troop massing and less damage spikes. Base managemant is also quite boring: Protect your base as necessary, else there's no managemant. You construct all tech buildings once for unit access and there's nothing useful you can do with them or any relevance as why you'd want a specific building in a specific spot, unless it's for defense. You can't research anything, except for +damage and +armor in one single building and that's it. Instead you choose some evolution stuff right before the mission starts. This is actually good, but taking away strategy and variety in each and every mission for that is far too annoying and only necessary because everything is scripted like hell - no time for actual gameplay / decisions here ! MUST GO FAST ! FAST IS FUN !

    This game is just out of control. Ressource gathering is either low or explodes, no healthy middle area, units are built in masses and also die in masses, thanks to the ressource flow and damage spikes. In the end you get a hero unit that can just blow up a whole base...
    Just... what were they thinking...
    Strategy game... ffs.

    At that point I'm just gonna pirate the last part of the trilogy, assuming that it just continues on it's path downhill from here. If it's any good or even better or like, real good, THEN I'll buy it.

    If I had anything to say it'd be this:
    1) Fire the idiot writing the story. Any school kid of any school at any age can do equal or better.
    2) Stop the heavy scripting. It's beyond annoying that the game tell's me how I should play in a strategy game or forces me to play a certain way. You're allowed to do that some time, if it adds to the game, is fun or any other good reason. But not all the time non-stop !
    3) The economy needs a redesign ! Mass harvesting as only tactical dimension for an economy is poor design. Past games already delivered good, fun, engaging ideas. Just because Starcraft 1 didn't have them doesn't mean Starcraft 2 would be less fun with them. Instead try those. C&C had ressource depots, base capture, ressource stealing, intel sabotage, tech stealing, power levels and actual harvesters out in the field. Starcraft 2 is shallow compared to just this one game, even if it's just economical options. And there are other examples. Just pick what works and is fun but stop this mass everything concept because it has no depth !
    4) Give tech structures a purpose besides existing. Because that's all the tech buildings are good for in the campaign.
    5) Tell story like you did in Starcraft 1: Let the other characters talk to the player instead of having them act as if the player doesn't exist. That just disconnects.
    6) Actually play your game and see if it's fun. And stop ruining it.

    --Campaign rating only    … Expand
  12. Drain
    Aug 18, 2014
    5
    Like many games, most reviews for this are useless. They either falsely praise the game due to the reviewer being a idiot and/or paid off, or they sweep the game under the rug as if the game is the worst thing ever. The reality is that this is a very fun, but poorly written and mediocre product.

    Firstly, if you played Wings of Liberty; you pretty much know what you're getting here. I'm    Like many games, most reviews for this are useless. They either falsely praise the game due to the reviewer being a idiot and/or paid off, or they sweep the game under the rug as if the game is the worst thing ever. The reality is that this is a very fun, but poorly written and mediocre product.

    Firstly, if you played Wings of Liberty; you pretty much know what you're getting here. I'm going to compare this to Wings of Liberty; because I assume you played the last game or you probably wouldn't be playing this one.

    The biggest problem with Heart of the Swarm, which was also the biggest problem of Wings of Liberty; is the story. The story in this game is the worst thing you'll ever have seen since... well... Wings of Liberty. It's full of plot holes and meaningless made up crap for the sake of filler missions. I should mention that they ruin Kerrigan's character beyond belief, but is that surprising after they've shamelessly ruined Jim Raynor already? Someone needs to tell these that Jim and Kerrigan never even had a romance in the past. Blizzard pulled that right out of their ass for the sake of these games. They wanted to force in a needless romance with no idea how to even write it, just like Georgia Lucas with Episode 2. It also reminds me of when they revived Illidan for the Burning Crusade just so he could be a raid boss. I hate how Blizzard completely ruins everything previously established in order to just "do their own thing" in follow up games. If you were once a fan of their games; things like this are downright insulting.

    Here, for instance, Kerrigan goes right back to being Zerg, even though she was suppose to be "cured" in the last game, something that already made no sense.(Not a spoiler either; look at the box cover and read it) It's very clear they didn't write very far ahead. Also, Jim and Kerrigan's romance is almost as pathetic as Bell and Edward's. But did you really expect much, after playing Wings of Liberty? This was a follow up to that; and seeing as how that game's story was up in every possible way and full of plot holes, why shouldn't this one be too? The cutscenes are numerous and have a nice quality to them... but it's just hard to care when the game doesn't make any damn sense nor has any kind of competent story you're going to be invested in. Like Wings of Liberty; as soon as you finish the game, you'll not care about anything that happened in it. I could go on more about how awful the stories are in these games; but I think you get the point.

    Putting aside the awful storytelling; you've now got the actual gameplay... which is more or less the same as it was in the last game. The biggest differences are that the game is played 2-3x faster and Kerrigan is a main hero in most missions. Both of these are bad things. The faster pacing saps out most of the fun. By the time you get a hold of what you're doing in a mission; it's over. There's no time to actually enjoy it, think about what you're doing, or fool around. I hate how Starcraft has basically become an action genre. Why does it have to be so fast? Wings of Liberty was fast, but not "this" fast, and the originals were snails by comparison. But that's not to say that the game is hard. It's quite easy on the first 2 settings; especially since Kerrigan is a 1 woman army that can pillage and plunder forces with little to no help. That's more fun sapped right out of the game, because an RTS isn't suppose to revolve around 1 walking demi god. Warcraft 3, which I loved, had heroes, but they couldn't solo half an army this effectively. Kerrigan is better than a level 10 hero in Warcraft 3; and much so, even right away.

    I should add that the game features pointless upgrade choices and filler missions to unlock more. It's very clear that they had almost no content to work with; so they just filled it up with all this This is what happens when you break 1 game into 3 pieces. But while they managed to fill out Wings of Liberty with a nice campaign; the Zerg got the short stick. The campaign feels disappointingly short due to how fast the missions unfortunately are; and everything not in a mission, is just overly obvious padding or window dressing. You've then got the multiplayer... which didn't do much except add a few new units. They want 60$ for this BTW. So you basically paid 120$ just to play SC2 online. Good for you if you did that, but I didn't.

    In summery it's tough to recommend this. It does have a campaign that can be some fun, but once again is drowned is terrible cutscenes that do nothing but fuel a totally nonsensical story. And since you already got multiplayer with the first game... you're basically paying for that again. I leave this one up for you to decide.
    -Drain (Steam)    … Expand
  13. Pozz
    Mar 25, 2013
    7
    The long awaited expansion to Starcraft II is out, and in it the continuation in the troubles of Kerrigan. A few new units might've reinforced each of the three warring factions, but the essence is still the same. Multiplayer tactics have changed and new maps arrived, but other than that it's still the same good ol' Starcraft II. The story continues however. Picking up right where we endedThe long awaited expansion to Starcraft II is out, and in it the continuation in the troubles of Kerrigan. A few new units might've reinforced each of the three warring factions, but the essence is still the same. Multiplayer tactics have changed and new maps arrived, but other than that it's still the same good ol' Starcraft II. The story continues however. Picking up right where we ended in Wings of Liberty with a de-zergified Sarah Kerrigan and her white knight James Raynor must finally be able to embrace each other in an everlasting love, or will they? Right from the starting cinematic we're introduced to the Kerrigan's troubling dreams and thoughts and we follow her throughout the campaign. As beautyful as the cinematics are, as full of old clichés and story arcs that doesn't really surprise you it is. The story is told with humor, and visiting your lieutenants around the ship can bring a giggle and a snort, but when all comes to all it's a mediocre(at best) story which stunning cinematics and humor carries you through. The missions are diverse enough to feel compelled to move on despite story being weak, though a few times you experience missions that feels copy-pasted and reskinned from Wings of Liberty. A few story paths and factions are introduced which we will most likely see in the protoss expansion and a few old 'friends' are revisited. My score is based mainly on the singleplayer compared to the price of the game, as multiplayer could've been done with a much smaller expansion/dlc. Due to weak story my final score is a 7. Cinematics were as always a pleasure to watch, if just the story had been of the same quality.… Expand
  14. feistin
    Mar 19, 2013
    6
    I am a huge Starcraft fan and have played the multiplayer part ever since the first Starcraft came out back in 1998. The expectations on the new part in the saga was however not huge from my part. I have played the beta and knew about most of the new units. I had hoped for an adventure equal to WoL and perhaps a bit more advanced when it came to gameplay. However, I was disapointed. TheI am a huge Starcraft fan and have played the multiplayer part ever since the first Starcraft came out back in 1998. The expectations on the new part in the saga was however not huge from my part. I have played the beta and knew about most of the new units. I had hoped for an adventure equal to WoL and perhaps a bit more advanced when it came to gameplay. However, I was disapointed. The game is even more simplified than in WoL and feels like a 4-5 hour long matinee movie a soap opera in space. Could have been alright as an expansion that cost around 15 bucks but not marketed as a full game.

    The score would have been lower if it wasnt for the great multiplayer but that wasn't really new.    … Expand
  15. Nyurena
    Mar 20, 2013
    6
    I've been trying to enjoy the campaign, but Kerrigan is simply an illogical, pretentious, #$%hole.  Revenge obsession can certainly make one do evil things, but when she turns around and pretentiously dresses down her zerg followers on morality, I can only facepalm so many times.

    The single player is simply E-sport training, once you've learned a new unit at a frantic pace, it's time to    I've been trying to enjoy the campaign, but Kerrigan is simply an illogical, pretentious, #$%hole.  Revenge obsession can certainly make one do evil things, but when she turns around and pretentiously dresses down her zerg followers on morality, I can only facepalm so many times.

    The single player is simply E-sport training, once you've learned a new unit at a frantic pace, it's time to move on to the next instead of letting you have a mission to toy around and learn their nuances.

    I honesty like the new zerg play-style, but I’d recommended against getting this until a real sale is on.    … Expand
  16. Freaky
    Mar 18, 2013
    5
    Great on the quality, i loved the artistic content and it was really polished. But at the end the game was over in 3 days, less then 20 hours of game play for me, even on hard difficulty. The game felt short for the time it took to develop it, and considering they did not have to rewrite the engine.

    So great game, too short of a story, overly easy even on Hard difficulty. I even got the    Great on the quality, i loved the artistic content and it was really polished. But at the end the game was over in 3 days, less then 20 hours of game play for me, even on hard difficulty. The game felt short for the time it took to develop it, and considering they did not have to rewrite the engine.

    So great game, too short of a story, overly easy even on Hard difficulty. I even got the CE that had nothing special in it it was 100 Euro. All in all disappointed by the content quantity in the game as well as in the physical CE box. Feels like they are just milking it.    … Expand
  17. Masterhummel
    Mar 14, 2013
    6
    I'm kinda splitted when it comes to HotS. Gameplay is fine as always. Cinematics are good. But the story carried by those two is rather weak. Even if it has at least two nice little touches, it feels more like a Anime aimed for 16 year old boys and girls instead of a mature story for the fanbase who grew up with Starcraft and Brood War. The scenes itself feel a little disconnected as whenI'm kinda splitted when it comes to HotS. Gameplay is fine as always. Cinematics are good. But the story carried by those two is rather weak. Even if it has at least two nice little touches, it feels more like a Anime aimed for 16 year old boys and girls instead of a mature story for the fanbase who grew up with Starcraft and Brood War. The scenes itself feel a little disconnected as when someone thought "Oh, it would be cool if Kerrigan would do this. And later that" without really caring about why she would do it. The game was no edges. It's all round and comfy. Also it kinda does the Warcraft 3 limbo. Now since Humans and Zerg are more-or-less at peace, we will have some Protoss fun in the next title and i REALLY strongly guess that we have to team up against the evil space-god-zerg-protoss-hybrid-xel'naga whatsoever antagonists and we will leave the universe in the state of fragile peace like we did in wc3. So Blizzard can craft whatever they want out of it.… Expand
  18. Verdan
    Mar 17, 2013
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was counting days to this game. Sure why not? Cinematic trailer gave me hopes, all sneak peaks into story and so forth. Bought the game and played trough story. While playing the campaign i nonstop feeling "When this thing will evolve into a story". No zerg feeling, kerrigan hunting for revenge and most missions were fillers. Story did not go in depth about what is happening. Usually in Blizzard games the story itself runs deep and gives feeling you are actually watching a movie. This time? Mission after mission, nothing new and very little progress.

    Now that the rant about story is done. Let´s look into other parts. Graphics, no improvement there. Still eye candy to play for my taste and i like the way they changed good part of the layout´s etc.

    I´m not big into all this 1v1 action. Game is horrible in my opinion when it comes down to 1v1, game might be over if you looked over shoulder and missed 2 seconds before making first SCV, Probe or Drone. Reacting into something wrong or not scouting something out in time. Just not my idea of an strategy game, but still watching streams, tournaments and so forth it´s highly entertaining. New units are mainly boring and lame. Hellbat & Widow mine are very awesome, but rest just total letdown. Was expecting more, even if it meant deleting few old ones. New maps are nice in visual. In my opinion best part about this expansion is leveling system (pointless, but still), worker count and "competive AI" play..

    Only reason i hit 7 for this expansion is arcade games. Game been out for 5 days and only thing keeps me logging from time to time is play some arcade action. Hat´s off to the hard working map makers out there. Sum up of everything: Overall ok expansion, i was hoping more from Blizzard since they used to have high standards from themselves. I would buy this expansion again only for the story, even if it´s lame. I stop this review by saying good old blizzard phrase "Expansion will fix it!". Protoss campaign im booking rest of my hope on you!     … Expand
  19. euu
    Mar 31, 2013
    6
    So, is this it? After almost three years of waiting this is the long-awaited Heart of the Swarm? Wings of Liberty may not have been an exceptional game, but at least for Blizzard was a return to it's roots after 6 years of milking Wow but this Expansion fails to improve the game the same way Broodwar did for the original Starcraft or The Frozen Throne did for Warcraft 3, instead addingSo, is this it? After almost three years of waiting this is the long-awaited Heart of the Swarm? Wings of Liberty may not have been an exceptional game, but at least for Blizzard was a return to it's roots after 6 years of milking Wow but this Expansion fails to improve the game the same way Broodwar did for the original Starcraft or The Frozen Throne did for Warcraft 3, instead adding more of the same. Some of the new units are neat but the Multiplayer feels pretty much the same, rewarding speed over strategy and skill. But if you are like me, more interested in the Campaign than the MP, I wouldn't get too excited for the "epic" story of HotS since it makes the cheesy plot of Wings of Liberty look like it was written by Dostoyevsky. Kerrigan is just not as interesting as she was in Broodwar. There she was a master manipulator as well as a tragic character; here she feels like an spoiled teenage girl who happens to command the Zerg Swarm. Some of the Campaign missions are cool since not all revolve around destroying all enemies on the map, but you won't spend more than 7 hours in the Single Player. Heart of the Swarm may look like a masterpiece compared to Blizzard's last pile of garbage known as Diablo 3 but it is hardly the major improvement of Starcraft II that we've been waiting for.… Expand
  20. Diosys
    Apr 6, 2013
    6
    While the RPG Multiplayer strategy is still solid, I would like to point out that the campaign is abhorrently terrible. The writing is bad, extremely bad. The cinematics are excellent and high quality but the storyline has taken a turn for the worst. Starcraft II has turned into a glorified love story. While in Starcraft 1, where Raynor and Kerrigans flirtation took a sidestep beside theWhile the RPG Multiplayer strategy is still solid, I would like to point out that the campaign is abhorrently terrible. The writing is bad, extremely bad. The cinematics are excellent and high quality but the storyline has taken a turn for the worst. Starcraft II has turned into a glorified love story. While in Starcraft 1, where Raynor and Kerrigans flirtation took a sidestep beside the sector's politics, this entire game is based around their story and they throw around whole armies for that love.

    Behind that story is a revenge plot, but you need to have played Starcraft 1 to understand it. As well, this coming darkness that Zeratul predicted in Wing's of Liberty is barely addressed in this story, when it should have been the primary concern.    … Expand
  21. Garloz911
    Apr 23, 2013
    6
    It's the exact same as starcraft 2 part 1. I had a good laugh at all the "reviews" from the professionals to the right. The script and story are cliche and predictable which was probably the worst part of solo mode. The multiplayer is the best party by far for this game. If you want a great experience with hundreds of different games made by players jump on in. However if you want a wellIt's the exact same as starcraft 2 part 1. I had a good laugh at all the "reviews" from the professionals to the right. The script and story are cliche and predictable which was probably the worst part of solo mode. The multiplayer is the best party by far for this game. If you want a great experience with hundreds of different games made by players jump on in. However if you want a well told story best look else where. The camp mode is incredibly easy even on the hardest modes and you may (if you are a reader) find yourself bored with this retold story.… Expand
  22. njkk
    Apr 24, 2013
    5
    Really just a money grabbing expansion. Starcraft 2 the original game is good, but i would not say that the expansion really improved the gaming experience. I have played other rts expansions that i thought were just as good if not better than the original game i do not get that opinion from the starcraft 2 expansion unfortunately.
  23. pitox
    Apr 3, 2013
    5
    A good game but still further from what original Starcraft was where I could play it for hours each time differently and still after years I do like to play it. Starcraft 2 is the same story but a different game they added many flashy things upgrades new units and so on just the missions are not what I would like personally. Too many missions are way too short with time limits very limitedA good game but still further from what original Starcraft was where I could play it for hours each time differently and still after years I do like to play it. Starcraft 2 is the same story but a different game they added many flashy things upgrades new units and so on just the missions are not what I would like personally. Too many missions are way too short with time limits very limited in what you can actually do differently next time. Old Starcraft was get a base get the enemy big map and slowly progress. Blizzard has focused too much on making it intense but everything is so quick most missions just over 20 minutes I have just started and its over someone still telling me you have 5 minutes for this and that and one evening Heart of the Swarm it is finished. You really dont have to fix what isnt broken and this is bit too far from what I like about first Starcraft and it is not a good direction… Expand
  24. sgtdegrandis
    Oct 20, 2014
    7
    Well first I think this is the best RTS game we have currently however there are some major problems.
    1. No Lan (It’s pathetic that hackers have made it available but blizzard has not)
    2. Selling each game separately for more $$$ is Bull**** overall I like this game however the story is getting a little out there and not really making alot of sense but again its worth playing if you    Well first I think this is the best RTS game we have currently however there are some major problems.
    1. No Lan (It’s pathetic that hackers have made it available but blizzard has not)
    2. Selling each game separately for more $$$ is Bull****

    overall I like this game however the story is getting a little out there and not really making alot of sense but again its worth playing if you like Starcraft    … Expand
  25. trancenergy
    Mar 22, 2013
    6
    I bought the game purely for the single player campaign to get to know the continuation of the SC2 story that WoL got me hooked on. And i have to say i am a bit disappointed. The plot is too simple and to be honest feels uninspired and sucked out of a tonn of forced brainstorms of the campaign team. Most new characters are really vague and boring and the old ones aren't as charismatic asI bought the game purely for the single player campaign to get to know the continuation of the SC2 story that WoL got me hooked on. And i have to say i am a bit disappointed. The plot is too simple and to be honest feels uninspired and sucked out of a tonn of forced brainstorms of the campaign team. Most new characters are really vague and boring and the old ones aren't as charismatic as they were in WoL. The only new character i love is Abathur the Evolutions expert he is really charismatic and funny in his own way. Just for Abathur i give the campaign an average score rather than a fail. I understand that it is much harder to make a campaign for an Alien race than for humans and the team had to be really creative to make it interesting but they kinda failed to do tho. It is a solid experience but u don't get that warm feeling like u are watching a really good movie that hooks u from the first missions as the WoL campaign did.… Expand
  26. Hurzdligh
    Apr 14, 2013
    5
    It doesn't require a review, the credits at the end of the game says it all.
    10% game designers and story builders 90% marketing.

    A 5 from my part. Don`t want to waste my time on detailing the good and bad of this game.
  27. Projava
    Apr 2, 2013
    6
    Although I’ll be waiting for the end of the trilogy, I can’t say the game has as much grab as it once did for me. I was able to beat campaign in two days, and then I moved to play on-line. I stomached about three games and moved on. Nothing there to keep the more casual player there, something I hope they'll address in the future.
  28. volkov956
    May 4, 2013
    6
    Zerg Campaing story is very unattaching of interest bringing back the queen of blades seems to be a wasteful twist they could of just used a new Master Zerg which could of been more compelling and yes there is one point where they could of even killed off Queen of Blades and made a new Protaganist

    Game Play is very easy compaired to Star Craft II and its shorter it seems to be a    Zerg Campaing story is very unattaching of interest bringing back the queen of blades seems to be a wasteful twist they could of just used a new Master Zerg which could of been more compelling and yes there is one point where they could of even killed off Queen of Blades and made a new Protaganist

    Game Play is very easy compaired to Star Craft II and its shorter it seems to be a complete hold your hand Experience and what is up with the Huger UI am I just crazy?

    I Do believe the Protoss Expansion will rectify this    … Expand
  29. Vixremento
    Mar 19, 2013
    7
    Pretty fun experience overall and a more enjoyable storyline than Wings of Liberty. The cut-scenes are spectacular as usual (unlike some of those crappy ones embedded in WoW these days) and the units, upgrades, etc. all feel very nice. This expansion includes some Evolution missions that serve as tutorials for using your units and that then later give you the choice of selecting aPretty fun experience overall and a more enjoyable storyline than Wings of Liberty. The cut-scenes are spectacular as usual (unlike some of those crappy ones embedded in WoW these days) and the units, upgrades, etc. all feel very nice. This expansion includes some Evolution missions that serve as tutorials for using your units and that then later give you the choice of selecting a "specialisation" for them as you progress through the SP campaign. Negative bits are here though so I'll list them:
    - Far too easy on Normal (especially when compared to Wings of Liberty)
    - Silly "noob" options enabled by default (i.e. not being able to select your enemy/non-playable units to see their health, constant reminders of "an optimal number of units to mine gas is 3", etc.)...just like Diablo III's elective mode being hidden away.
    - Too linear and short I can accept the linear because I don't expect an RPG and the "too short" bits could have been fixed with a more challenging experience when playing normal (really Normal feels more like Casual with sunglasses). I can't comment on mutli-player because I don't care about it (well I used to enjoy LAN with friends and family but the online lag pauses piss me off now even when playing in the same room).
     
    Conclusion: Enjoyable experience but just not quite worth the price if you're only into the Single Player campaign.    … Expand
  30. Imatuhl
    Mar 13, 2013
    6
    First lets begin with the story. The story is fairly engaging with great characters, good rising and falling action, decent dialog(some of the dialog from the other Zerg creatures could have been better). However there are parts in the story that where it seemed like the writers wanted to make the player sympathize for the Zerg. How can you ever sympathize with a giant alien killingFirst lets begin with the story. The story is fairly engaging with great characters, good rising and falling action, decent dialog(some of the dialog from the other Zerg creatures could have been better). However there are parts in the story that where it seemed like the writers wanted to make the player sympathize for the Zerg. How can you ever sympathize with a giant alien killing machine? Also the societies they've created on Zerg's origin planet make very little sense. The Proto-Zerg creatures are feral beasts why would they even have societies and packs when their lifestyle seems to be a highlanderesque dog eat dog. Gameplay wise there really isn't much to it. Its the same old build a base and a bunch of creatures and attack the missions are incredibly easy with a few unique gems in there. The new leveling system is interesting but falls short as it seems like a substitute for the research portion of WoL only minus the quirky scientist guy. Overall I feel like Starcraft 2 hasn't really done anything to redefine the RTS genre but because the game flows smoothly with a pretty good story and atmosphere I'll give it a 6. If you're a Starcraft fan its worth it for the story but beyond that the game doesn't really have much to add.… Expand
  31. Darsidius
    Apr 2, 2013
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The first thing to understand about Heart of the Swarm is that it is not a single-player experience. There was a time when Blizzard had concern for their story-telling elements (consistency, originality, creativity), but not today. If you have played any other Blizzard game, you will most assuredly notice the redundancy of recycled themes in their games. For instance, in Warcraft, the Orcs were once villainous monsters who made pacts with demons and other creatures to take over the other worlds, but now, they're just a misunderstood people with forgotten tribal roots looking to make a place for themselves in the world. Well, in Heart of the Swarm, imagine that same thing word-for-word, but with the Zerg (an alien race hell-bent on assimilating the universe, now-become a misunderstood alien race hijacked by an evil god to take over the universe but now they have forgotten primal roots looking for a place for themselves in the universe). To make matters worse, two years prior to Heart of the Swarm's release, the ending was leaked, and while Blizzard would not confirm or deny its authenticity, it was revealed at the end of the expansion to be somewhat true. The problem is that the dialogue from the leaked ending matched the events in the leaked ending. In the official ending, there was much cut out, but the dialogue remained, thus making most of what the characters say in that final cinematic a head-scratching anomaly. Watch it for yourself on youtube.
    However, Starcraft is about multiplayer business, and for some reason, it has evolved into a major eSport, thus you can expect that the primary focus on the game is this, not story-telling. Blizzard does well in creating an engaging gameplay experience, when the focus is centered on RTS game play in Starcraft. But, the company really does need help in the story department they've admitted in forums that they "overlooked" obvious gaffes, while at the same time using the excuse that player didn't "read into the story" to better understand their obvious mistakes. The new units are interesting novelties to the game play; based on the race you play, you can expect that some units are much more helpful or others are outright useless. Blizzard and Starcraft, whatever the case though, is here to stay, but if you're a single-player, lore-enthusiast, my recommendation is to expect MORE.    … Expand
  32. Heimskringla91
    May 10, 2013
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. What I used to love about Blizzard was they knew how to tell a story...well I wonder where that talent went because there isn't one here. WoW and SC have seemingly melded into the same story but just different worlds. There's something super evil coming so Horde and Alliance must join together to defeat it. There's something super evil coming so Terran, Zerg, and Protoss must joing together to defeat it. Awesome? I also hate Jim Raynor by the way, he's the reason a lot of people are dying by saving Kerrigan. I wish Tycus had finished the job in Wings of Liberty. OR I wish Arcturus Mensk had just finished the job at the ending of this game. But no he had to give Kerrigan a stupid damn speech about how awesome and cool he is instead of just shooting her point blank while she was writhing on the floor. Everyone seems to be hailing Blizzard's cinematics, which of course, are very nice but so useless. For example in the launch trailer I believe it was, a Viking drops in front of a Brutalisk and gets owned, I doubt he would have done that or maybe he's just that stupid.
    But alas, the review also needs to tell of the gameplay. Which is your typical RTS and certainly fun however, for a singleplayer enthusiast such as myself, it falls short (the story is the main part of that). The leveling up system is back from Wings of Liberty which I think is pretty cool but otherwise didn't add a lot in the way of new ideas. Additionally, just something that has to be said, Kerrigan's walking animations are just hilarious. It looks like she always has to poo or maybe something is just stuck up her bum but it's very funny. Anywho, multiplayer of course seems to be the focus here for Blizzard and it's pretty obvious. Tournaments and what not have become a big thing so it seems Blizzard would like to appeal to that crowd. This unfortunately makes the story driven, single player driven folks at a loss. Where StarCraft and WarCraft once had great stories they've taken a backseat to what seems like $moneygrabz$ for Blizzard. 'Tis a shame, I say!    … Expand
  33. psychotic
    Mar 25, 2013
    6
    Overall this expansion pack feels like a rip off in the worse way, then why a 6 not a 1 or a 3 because the campaign was ok not as bad or as good as other people make it to be. The multiplayer improvements are great thats the only reason why you probably got starcraft 2, if not then why did you get starcraft, get company of heroes which has a great singleplayer and a ok multiplayer
  34. Tytos
    Mar 13, 2013
    6
    A very decent micromanagement/small-scale rts game, the campaign is much better then anticipated and the new units fit very well into the existing unit rooster, however the multiplayer remains a spamm-button-feast where the grand strategy lacks importance because of the insane speed at which multiplayer partys run on.
  35. NeshR
    Mar 13, 2013
    7
    For some unknown reason my account was converted to EU Region from RU just before release, so I could not play for 2 days (as well as many other players). Its the worst game launch I`ve ever seen.
  36. MikefromAngus
    Apr 1, 2013
    6
    Alittle disappointed by this game. The graphics should have been improved, But very little has been done.
    Single player mode, was a good challenge, I played it on "Hard" setting. But, most of the missions were time based. The whole single player experience seemed rushed. Multiplayer adds more units, and makes things alittle more intresting. But like with the graphics, very little improvements.
  37. sayedstafa
    Apr 12, 2013
    6
    It's fun to go back to playing more SC2 after it's been close to 3 years since Wings of Liberty came out. Although, I feel like the story hurt the game a lot. Most of this game consists of you destroying what you worked so hard to accomplish in Wings of Liberty. Because of that, I felt as a player that I did not want to do the mission objectives that I was given. When I as a playerIt's fun to go back to playing more SC2 after it's been close to 3 years since Wings of Liberty came out. Although, I feel like the story hurt the game a lot. Most of this game consists of you destroying what you worked so hard to accomplish in Wings of Liberty. Because of that, I felt as a player that I did not want to do the mission objectives that I was given. When I as a player don't want to do the mission objectives, then how am I really supposed to have that much fun? With that aside, it's still SC2, they didn't do anything to the gameplay to make it worse, it's just the story really hurt the game for me.… Expand
  38. AntivanChicken
    Mar 16, 2013
    7
    This is review from single-player's only point of view!

    Where WoL had this Firefly-like feel of ridiculously tough space cowboys, HotS has only Kerrigan to offer and she has half of Raynor's charisma. Sure, bazillion times his power, but still half charisma. Same goes for the rest of her little helpers when compared to Hyperion's crew. As far as story goes, I enjoyed WoL much better,    This is review from single-player's only point of view!

    Where WoL had this Firefly-like feel of ridiculously tough space cowboys, HotS has only Kerrigan to offer and she has half of Raynor's charisma. Sure, bazillion times his power, but still half charisma. Same goes for the rest of her little helpers when compared to Hyperion's crew. As far as story goes, I enjoyed WoL much better, mainly thanks to better characters.

    Of advertised 27 missions, there are 7 evolution missions that are basically tutorials. That leaves 20 missions, which is still fair, I guess. Especially since HotS is expansion and not a full game. Just please, don't lie to us next time, Blizzard.

    The main issue for me is the gameplay the game is easy. I'm not an RTS expert and I'm too lame to play multiplayer matches so I expect an RTS game to be moderately challenging for me when I choose Normal difficulty. This game is not. You basically don't have to build your base. No, not even all the available buildings to unlock all your recruitment options. You don't have to bother with defense most of the time (unless you're playing defense mission). You don't even have to hotkey different groups of your units All you have to do is recruit few units, hit F2, set attack move to the center of the enemy base and repeat until enemy cracks.
    This in fact does terrific job of creating this Zerg "we are numberless" feeling. However, it's not that terrific when it comes gameplay, so I consider it more of a bug than a feature. In WoL I somehow cared for my units, I would use Siege tanks and Banshees to carefully remove enemy base's defenses and retreat for repair to prevent losses (concept of tougher and more unique mercenary units that were gone once killed was encouraging this careful gameplay that actually felt like I was deploying some strategy). Not in HotS. All because Kerrigan is immortal and her powers granted by leveling are so ridiculously overpowered. Especially one of them deprives any unit that has no anti-air capability of any value.

    However, despite these flaws, I still stormed through the campaign, giving it almost every single moment of my free time and I felt compelled to finish it all the time. So, there must be something to it. For example missions are quite diverse...

    Overall, even though the game has its flaws, at least from single player only point of view, it still gets green score from me for this... "something-to-it factor" that made me play all the way through it.    … Expand
  39. ktamlyn
    Mar 17, 2013
    7
    I like the subtle improvements and the cinematics are amazing. As others have stated the plot is wholy not engaging though its not as full of holes as people say, its just not good, nor do I empathize with the characters. In fact I empathize more with the empire's troops needlessly being killed in the plot-line more than ANY of the main characters. Its still in the macho rouge guy styleI like the subtle improvements and the cinematics are amazing. As others have stated the plot is wholy not engaging though its not as full of holes as people say, its just not good, nor do I empathize with the characters. In fact I empathize more with the empire's troops needlessly being killed in the plot-line more than ANY of the main characters. Its still in the macho rouge guy style vein of the previous Star Craft storyline, the problem is the now the main character is a woman who has lost her humanity yet somehow she still loves Raynor? kind of a weird mix. If her struggle was more gradual than I could buy into it. Some complain its too easy, well then I say pursue the achievements, not just beating the missions once on normal. The game is the same Star Craft 2 we love and for motivating me to play SC2 some more, this gets a 7. If the plot was better, than I would have given it a better score. Star Craft 2 first storyline was strong for all its flaws, this plot-line is not strong.… Expand
  40. Skulb
    Mar 30, 2013
    5
    As usual with a Blizzard game there`s a lot of polish to HotS. The MP engine, the in game interface and unit control is all great as is the graphical quality and the sound. In fact, if you love playing MP RTS games with lag HotS is just about the perfect game.
    Unfortunately I don`t and consider e-sports about as entertaining to take part in as math exams, and more stressful than Christmas    As usual with a Blizzard game there`s a lot of polish to HotS. The MP engine, the in game interface and unit control is all great as is the graphical quality and the sound. In fact, if you love playing MP RTS games with lag HotS is just about the perfect game.
    Unfortunately I don`t and consider e-sports about as entertaining to take part in as math exams, and more stressful than Christmas shopping. It`s OK to watch, but just like with downhill skiing, Tour de France or professional wrestling I`m more than happy not to ever participate in it.
    Which leaves the single player campaign, which is to be perfectly honest full of some of the most lame ass writing you`re likely to have ever seen. Cliche on cliche piles onto the never ending monologue of weirdness and bravado of Kerrigan. I don`t think I can remember the last time I had a more overwhelming desire to kill off the main character in the story of a video game. It is just too bad to even properly describe in words.
    The story itself might be OK actually, but it`s just the way it`s being told. Until otherwise proven by Blizzard my opinion is that the entire scripting crew of SC2 have bee fired because they had too much talent,, and have been replaced by 3 illegal aliens being held prisoners in a broom closet by evil Blizzard accountants and forced to write scripts for the SC2 franchise, unless they wanna be handed over to immigration.

    Honestly though, if it wasn`t for the damn lag I get every time I so much as think about multi player, I might not be so harsh on SC2. But when the campaign is so poorly written I squirm with embarrassment in every single dialogue, and I can`t play multi player because of lag, what is left to like of the things I paid for? Not much is the answer to that question.    … Expand
  41. ploppytheman
    Apr 19, 2013
    7
    Im very fair in all of my reviews and the industry does seem to be in a downward spiral however I thought that sc2 hots was very well done. I wouldnt say single player was great, the story was downright absolute trash, but the gameplay and units are great. A lot of people think that starcraft is only a single player game but its not, its mainly about multiplayer and esports. Dont get meIm very fair in all of my reviews and the industry does seem to be in a downward spiral however I thought that sc2 hots was very well done. I wouldnt say single player was great, the story was downright absolute trash, but the gameplay and units are great. A lot of people think that starcraft is only a single player game but its not, its mainly about multiplayer and esports. Dont get me wrong I loved sc1 and its single player and neither sc2 single or multi can hold a candle to it, but it is still very well done and a good solid game. If you feel you didnt get your money for singleplayer only, you are right, because the game is a multipart package, like taking a slice of cake and saying the cake is too small, its your own damn fault for not playing multi isnt it.

    Blizzard failed in the areas of wow and d3, they are trying to fix starcraft for multi imo, but the campaign story was frankly absolute trash. They made it into a cheesy soap opera and took "queen of the universe" and make her good and shallow, damsel in distress. They turned kerrigan from a cunning cutthroat evil respectable and feared dictator to a weak emotional woman. Now dont get me wrong I hate feminism and all that trash, but this is a joke, they basically destroyed what she was, like sarah conner going back to being a waitress... well I really could go on and on about how everything in sc1 was essentially tossed out for primal zerg wow clone nonsense you can find long posts about it if you look around. Its just so disappointing... the potential sc2 story could have had... WoL had the same problem but at least Jim Raynor and Zeratul seemed in character, at least partially.

    So overall its still a 7 because its a good game, but if I were to rate this on "what blizzard is capable of" or their old standard I would give it around a 4 or 5, because this is shody work. And the campaign story is literally about a ZERO because of how terrible it was, negative even for the lore they spit out and stomped on.    … Expand
  42. teshia
    Jun 28, 2013
    5
    I was very disappointed with Heart of the Swarm. The story was okay and the art direction was pretty good but I found the gameplay lacking. I played through it on Normal difficulty and didn't die once during the entire campaign. That's not Normal, that's Easy, or even easier. I'm no Starcraft expert and couldn't remember what any of the units did when I came back to play thisI was very disappointed with Heart of the Swarm. The story was okay and the art direction was pretty good but I found the gameplay lacking. I played through it on Normal difficulty and didn't die once during the entire campaign. That's not Normal, that's Easy, or even easier. I'm no Starcraft expert and couldn't remember what any of the units did when I came back to play this expansion. It shouldn't have been this easy. I'm not paying good money to walk through it like it was an RTS for kids. Total snore fest. It certainly wasn't like that when I played the first Starcraft game or even Warcraft 2. Come on guys, add some tactics in make me work for it. Hard should be hard. Normal should be normal. Easy should be easy.… Expand
  43. birdman3
    May 15, 2013
    7
    I played the single player campaign mostly to see all the cool upgrades and evolutions for each of the zerg creatures. That alone made the game rewarding- the campaign is pretty mundane (the writing is not very good) and fairly short (about 20 missions? Right?), but overall: it was the various evolutions that made me keep playing.
  44. scruffycavetrol
    Mar 27, 2013
    5
    It's only an expansion, so you need Wings of Liberty. It adds some upgraded units, and some cool genetic upgrading of units. It really just continues the story, where you play as the Zerg and Kerrigan, so expect the 3rd expansion to revolve around Protoss. It's a decent expansion, I'm not as into the RTS multiplayer, but being old enough to remember when the first was released back in theIt's only an expansion, so you need Wings of Liberty. It adds some upgraded units, and some cool genetic upgrading of units. It really just continues the story, where you play as the Zerg and Kerrigan, so expect the 3rd expansion to revolve around Protoss. It's a decent expansion, I'm not as into the RTS multiplayer, but being old enough to remember when the first was released back in the 90's, this is where the game really does shine. There's nothing groundbreaking here, just a nifty continuation to the story. Typical expansion type of stuff.… Expand
  45. DOSBox
    Apr 2, 2013
    7
    Hervorragende Cinematics, Story sehr unterhaltsam und die Missionen spielt man an einem Guß durch ohne dass jemals Langeweile aufkommt. Die Kampagne ist aufjedenfall die beste, die in den letzten vielen Jahren rausgekommen ist. Das einzige was besser ist, ist die Frozen Throne Kampagne, weil HotS zum einen selbst auf Brutal einfach zu leicht ist. Karrigan ist schlicht zu stark ausgefallenHervorragende Cinematics, Story sehr unterhaltsam und die Missionen spielt man an einem Guß durch ohne dass jemals Langeweile aufkommt. Die Kampagne ist aufjedenfall die beste, die in den letzten vielen Jahren rausgekommen ist. Das einzige was besser ist, ist die Frozen Throne Kampagne, weil HotS zum einen selbst auf Brutal einfach zu leicht ist. Karrigan ist schlicht zu stark ausgefallen und zum anderen sind die einzelnen Missionen zu kurz. Nach 20 Minuten ist der Spaß dann auch schon vorbei. Die Missionen wurden also mehr als ein Quickie für zwischendurch designed. Eine Schande, denn ich vermisse das anspruchsvolle Missionsdesign aus The Frozen Throne, deren Spieldauer pro Missionen auch gern mal mehrere Stunden dauerte.
    Im großen und ganzen ist HotS für dieses Genre grandios aber sieht man davon ab, reichts nur für ein "ganz nett". Zumindest wie bereits erwähnt sind die Cinematics geil und das Missionsdesign ist zwar nicht das was ich mir gewünscht habe, aber langweilig wurde es nicht.    … Expand
  46. SupaChigga
    Nov 18, 2013
    7
    Single Player/Multi Player (2/2)

    (If the single player is better than the multiplayer, review this section as if it had no multplayer) (If the multiplayer is better than the multiplayer, review this section as if it had no single player) Gameplay (2/2) Visuals/Story (2/2) (If the visuals are better than the story, review this section as if it had no story) (If the story is    Single Player/Multi Player (2/2)

    (If the single player is better than the multiplayer, review this section as if it had no multplayer) (If the multiplayer is better than the multiplayer, review this section as if it had no single player)

    Gameplay (2/2)

    Visuals/Story (2/2)

    (If the visuals are better than the story, review this section as if it had no story) (If the story is better than the visuals, review this section as if the visuals didn’t matter)

    Accessibility/Longevity (2/2)

    (Review this section only on Accessibility if the game has no longevity) (Review this section only on longevity if the game isn’t accessible)

    Pricing (0/2)

    Wildcard (-1)

    This is a guideline for how to properly review games. Many reviewers like to get a “feel” for a game, and arbitrarily give a game a score that they believe it deserves. This results in wildly different scores between different reviewers, and vastly different scores between similar games. This guideline addresses these problems and scores games fairly and consistently. This guideline also gives scores that are usually similar to the metacritic score.

    The review score is based out of 10 points. There are no “half” or 0.5 increments. It is impossible to have a score above 10 or below 0. The review score will change as the game gets new dlc, drops in price, or if more secrets are found through the game increasing its appeal.

    The scoring is split into 6 sections. The first five sections can add a possible 2 points to the final score. The first 5 sections are Single Player/Multi Player, Gameplay, Visuals/Story, Accessibility/Longevity, and Pricing.

    Notice that 3 of these sections have two parts. These particular sections will be scored based on the stronger part of the game of the two. For example, if a game has a lousy single player campaign, but an excellent multiplayer component, that section will be based solely on the multiplayer as if the single player did not exist. This allows games to be based on their own merits, as many unnecessary features are shoehorned into video games by publishers to reach a “feature quota”. Games that excel in both areas of a section don’t receive should be noted in the written review, but cannot increase the score past 2 in that section. However, it can be taken into account in the final section

    The final section can add 1, add 0, or subtract 1 to the final score. This final section is the “wildcard” section. This section is for how the reviewer “feels” about the game, but limits this only to this section, rather than the entire 10 point review. This section can include any positive or negative point that was not covered in the previous 5 sections.    … Expand
  47. laertan
    Feb 7, 2020
    7
    Very short campaign, nice design, great cinematic. Sad to admit it, since I love zerg, but WoL is superior to this one in every possible way.
  48. Honeybadgers
    Jun 3, 2013
    6
    This review is for the single player, because the if you want to play a multiplayer RTS, you already know that SCII is about as good as it gets.

    The campaign is just atrocious. It's polished, as blizzard games always are, but it's about as relevant to multiplayer or RTS elements as I am related to a tuna. It's essentially a nonstop flow of new, gimmicky map ideas, and while I'm okay    This review is for the single player, because the if you want to play a multiplayer RTS, you already know that SCII is about as good as it gets.

    The campaign is just atrocious. It's polished, as blizzard games always are, but it's about as relevant to multiplayer or RTS elements as I am related to a tuna. It's essentially a nonstop flow of new, gimmicky map ideas, and while I'm okay with mechanics that supplement the RTS elements, I don't like how many levels were DOTA-esque and central around the hero. Starcraft and warcraft 3 just don't blend well together, and it might make new players think that the hero concept has anything to do with the game, where it doesn't. I can count on one hand the number of missions where I felt like I could play proper zerg (I'm a terran player and still felt like zerg got cheated) and the number of departures from multiplayer zerg is almost frightening (queens are completely changed, all the mutations and different attributes of each unit make them feel completely different to how they do in multiplayer)

    The character arc for kerrigan is bipolar at best. She starts out just right, but almost immediately, goes completely bananas. They really could have paced her arc better, instead of wildly bouncing around. And pacing the story around what happens in the very first mission just doesn't set a good tone for the rest of the game.

    Interacting with your crew is pretty awful, as well. WoL's crew was equally as varied, but they were human, and thus, relatable. The zerg characters were just goofy and camp. Tychus and Matt in WoL were central, driving characters that you felt invested in. I went through every piece of dialogue in HOTS, and I absolutely hated almost every word spoken. I wanted nothing more than to not listen to those irrelevant sidekicks. Starcraft is dark and a very human story, and the zerg campaign made it feel goofy and completely inconsistent in tone, bouncing between drama, cliche, and humor with all the smoothness of falling down a flight of stairs.

    The game is also just brokenly easy. I breezed through it on brutal, and I'm by no means a great starcraft player.

    Cinematics are as good as video game cinematics can get. But unfortunately, and this feels unique in a blizzard game, they feel completely detached from the game that I was playing.

    If you're looking to play some multiplayer RTS, buy this game without even batting an eye. But if you're only looking for a top notch single player RTS, I'd suggest you go to teamliquid.net and find the starcraft brood war mod done in SCII graphics.    … Expand
  49. oso
    Dec 12, 2017
    5
    Story is cheesy and unlogical compared to the WoL campaign. It is way to short and filled with several no-brain-missions where you simply have to build more units than the opponent and ****ty characters with bull**** dialogues. Gameplay is (as expected) superior to most other competitive rts games. (The few new units didnt change much from my noob pov)
    as a conclusion id say it is not    Story is cheesy and unlogical compared to the WoL campaign. It is way to short and filled with several no-brain-missions where you simply have to build more units than the opponent and ****ty characters with bull**** dialogues. Gameplay is (as expected) superior to most other competitive rts games. (The few new units didnt change much from my noob pov)
    as a conclusion id say it is not worth a full priced game. Blizzard has lost a lot of my respect after D3 and this.    … Expand
  50. owen1218
    Jul 9, 2013
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A definite step-down from Wings of Liberty. The campaign is really too short to be worth the cost. I like to play through things nice and slow, and even still finished this over the course of two days. The victory over Mengsk feels really empty when it's so quick to be obtained. Half the work of the swarm is done via unchallenging "evolution missions" and an occasional defection by a brood mother. Beyond that, this really simplifies (and butchers) the nonlinear fun of WoL. I enjoyed being able to play off in one direction for a while and then returning to another thread later on. And finally, the new characters are really not that interesting, the dialogue unmemorable, and the story doesn't have the interesting twists that WoL does.

    All of that said, this game is not a total flop. If there was ever a perfect sequel to a game, Starcraft II was it. It takes nothing away from the original game and only adds to it. And as in WoL, the gameplay here is terrific. The story, although not on par with WoL, is still fairly decent.

    The real failure here is that the game's designers seem to have intentionally set it up for failure, by intentionally reducing gameplay time and the nonlinearity that helped make WoL so appealing. As this product stands, it's definitely fun but also something of a rip off.    … Expand
  51. voidspawngreg
    Jul 18, 2013
    6
    I was really looking forward to this game since I loved Wings of Liberty but unfortunately I was disappointed. Not to say that it's a bad game, it certainly isn't..but in my opinion it doesn't even come close to WoL.

    Good: Graphics Some fun missions (Although very few) Multiplayer Cutscenes Bad: Writing, Dialogues Story progression (Many "wtf did I miss an episode or something"    I was really looking forward to this game since I loved Wings of Liberty but unfortunately I was disappointed. Not to say that it's a bad game, it certainly isn't..but in my opinion it doesn't even come close to WoL.

    Good:
    Graphics
    Some fun missions (Although very few)
    Multiplayer
    Cutscenes

    Bad:
    Writing, Dialogues
    Story progression (Many "wtf did I miss an episode or something" moments)
    Boring and easy missions (Many of them were different versions of WoL missions)
    Pointless evolution missions (And they feld soooo out of place, Kerrigan seemed like a whole different person during those missions)
    0 strategy, just take Kerrigan with you and kick ass    … Expand
  52. TommyGunx
    Sep 10, 2013
    7
    Playing SC since 98' the single player campaign is so so i do understand this is a RTS and there is only so much you can do in a single player setting some of the cut scenes blew me away however the over all experience left me kind of hallow I did give the game a 7 mostly due to the online competition bottom line don't buy for the single player if you enjoy playing "chess on crack"Playing SC since 98' the single player campaign is so so i do understand this is a RTS and there is only so much you can do in a single player setting some of the cut scenes blew me away however the over all experience left me kind of hallow I did give the game a 7 mostly due to the online competition bottom line don't buy for the single player if you enjoy playing "chess on crack" this is the game for you online that is.… Expand
  53. TimMaxShift
    Dec 24, 2021
    5
    It's a shame they didn't take the script as seriously as they did the technical part. I played both parts already 10 times. The first part was much more serious and more mature, I would call it category R, ​​and the second part is PG-13. It feels like the story of the first part is not ideal, but it was written by people with a level of knowledge comparable to university students .. ItIt's a shame they didn't take the script as seriously as they did the technical part. I played both parts already 10 times. The first part was much more serious and more mature, I would call it category R, ​​and the second part is PG-13. It feels like the story of the first part is not ideal, but it was written by people with a level of knowledge comparable to university students .. It would seem that we have grown, they have too... Many naive works of art from our childhood grew up with us and began to acquire adult materialistic features or even rethought, without ceasing to be themselves, without losing the spirit of the original source. But not StarCraft. He not only remained in the same place, but also took a step back. Feels like the second part was written by schoolchildren. The game itself became brighter, the feeling of stuffiness disappeared, a large amount of children's humor appeared.
    An evil villain who is evil because he is evil, Prophecies, chosen ones, cosmic magic, abstract gods devouring worlds to which it is difficult to experience any kind of emotion, just as a person is not able to feel the distance in light years (since our biology was formed in conditions where this was not necessary), pink queen of blades, with a healthy complexion, neat eyebrows, hair styling and lip gloss with stilettos from a modeling agency called "swarm" ... if stilettos are her evolutionary advantage, then what does the world in which she exist look like? The world of strip clubs? Queen of our ... "blades". She is no longer a ruthless sociopath and manipulator, but a campy hysterical model from high society in Zerg.
    The first part is materialism, realism, and the second part is idealism and romanticism / classicism. The first SC is Terminator 1, 2, Alien 1, 2, Bladerunner and SC2 is Terminator 3, 5. This was the first time the game hurt me, the second time was BL3. In the opening videos Wol, Hots, LotV there is the spirit of the first part of the game, but in the game itself and in the rest of the videos, everything is much and much worse. And it's not the high cost of the videos, watch the SC: BroodWar videos. They are outdated, but they have a sense of danger, war, impending threat. The videos in the second part seem to be made by Hollywood. Secondary techniques, only proven methods. They seemed to come off the assembly line, as a result of the work of a raw neural network, and not of people.    … Expand
  54. DeusXCom
    Feb 16, 2017
    7
    Second part of the Startcraft 2 story, now the Zerg campaign with Kerrigan as the main protagonist. It's very good for what it is and I liked the story mode, Kerrigan is cool and so are her other Zerg buddies, but I'm giving it a 1 point lower score compared to the first one. It was all a bit too easy, but the main problem for me is simply the fact that while in the 90's Starcraft you hadSecond part of the Startcraft 2 story, now the Zerg campaign with Kerrigan as the main protagonist. It's very good for what it is and I liked the story mode, Kerrigan is cool and so are her other Zerg buddies, but I'm giving it a 1 point lower score compared to the first one. It was all a bit too easy, but the main problem for me is simply the fact that while in the 90's Starcraft you had all 3 races and their story campaigns in 1 game, now they basically force you to buy 3 games to complete the full story. 7/10… Expand
  55. leeds_manc
    Nov 22, 2013
    6
    It has been proved a terrible idea to force a trilogy release structure on to Starcraft 2. HOTS forced "new" units to be made which were "cool" and "different" enough to make people want to upgrade to a sequel of Wings of Liberty. Unfortunately, while there are some nice ideas, medivac boost being one of them, units such as the swarmhost have made what was a fast-paced and exciting game toIt has been proved a terrible idea to force a trilogy release structure on to Starcraft 2. HOTS forced "new" units to be made which were "cool" and "different" enough to make people want to upgrade to a sequel of Wings of Liberty. Unfortunately, while there are some nice ideas, medivac boost being one of them, units such as the swarmhost have made what was a fast-paced and exciting game to watch a very, very dull game to both play and spectate. The game has got worse over time and unfortunately the strongest tactics for each race are now also the most boring ones to watch. I wished they had stuck with WOL for a few more years, and added the best units from HOTs in one at a time... Blizzard's marketing experiment has ultimately failed.… Expand
  56. mulv81
    Feb 3, 2015
    5
    I waited until recently to pick this expansion pack up for only $20. They wanted $40 for this when it came out and I just laughed, I'm not paying Activision $40 every time they feel like reskinning their multiplayer games.

    They added a couple new units, completely changed the tech requirements for many units, and I feel like I'm not even playing the same game anymore. It's annoying to    I waited until recently to pick this expansion pack up for only $20. They wanted $40 for this when it came out and I just laughed, I'm not paying Activision $40 every time they feel like reskinning their multiplayer games.

    They added a couple new units, completely changed the tech requirements for many units, and I feel like I'm not even playing the same game anymore. It's annoying to me, I spent months learning to play StarCraft II, I get this expansion and now the command centre queues the first SCV for me? Why? This is confusing, I am OCD as Hell and I can't stand when a game developer makes pointless changes like this. Well, I'm going back to Wings of Liberty since this is a dead game.    … Expand
  57. CaptainBounty
    Mar 9, 2016
    7
    Although being a fun campaign, i was hoping for a little more within this addon. Competitive gameplay needed balancing in the beginning but is okay by now. Nothing too spectacular in the "new stuff department" but still a good choice if you like SC in general.
  58. BaconChamp
    Mar 18, 2016
    7
    Good game, but single player is very short. Also, it feels like most of the game is a tutorial, getting a new unit every few levels, or a new mutation to a unit. It took forever to have the hydralisk available. The end credits are looooooooooong.
  59. atomlord
    Apr 19, 2023
    7
    Компанія як завжди топ в жанрі, проте в 2023 жанр RTS скоріше мертвий ніж живий.
  60. Nekellor
    Aug 1, 2018
    6
    Логичное продолжение основной сюжетки с кооперацией с терранами. Неплохая альтернатива корабля с своей схемой прокачки и развития. Интересный рассказы зергов про их отношения к чему либо. Что то наподобие прокачки, как в 3 варике, для Кериган.Логичное продолжение основной сюжетки с кооперацией с терранами. Неплохая альтернатива корабля с своей схемой прокачки и развития. Интересный рассказы зергов про их отношения к чему либо. Что то наподобие прокачки, как в 3 варике, для Кериган.
  61. res0nancer
    Jun 5, 2023
    5
    Дополнение продолжающее общий сюжет в котором планка, заданная первой частью, медленно начинает падать. Видно, что главная героиня имеет все задатки стать отличным женским персонажем, но дополнение вроде посвященное этому персонажу, не раскрывает его суть и конечную личностную мотивацию, что оставляет только большое чувство грусти. Геймплей освежается за новую фракцию, но после привыканияДополнение продолжающее общий сюжет в котором планка, заданная первой частью, медленно начинает падать. Видно, что главная героиня имеет все задатки стать отличным женским персонажем, но дополнение вроде посвященное этому персонажу, не раскрывает его суть и конечную личностную мотивацию, что оставляет только большое чувство грусти. Геймплей освежается за новую фракцию, но после привыкания возвращаются те же проблемы из первого дополнения. Единственное, что отлично в этом дополнении - это персонажи, финальная катсцена и отыгрыш актеров.… Expand
  62. Denis94
    Aug 26, 2020
    7
    7 años después de pasarme el juego principal me atreví a jugar a esta expansión la cual tenía criando polvo en edición física ya hacía un puñado de años y que por diversos motivos no jugué hasta ahora.

    Esta vez nos toca controlar a Kerrigan esa mujer que nos hizo la vida imposible en la campaña principal, tenía dudas si Blizzard podría hacer una campaña bien orientada a la raza Zerg y la    7 años después de pasarme el juego principal me atreví a jugar a esta expansión la cual tenía criando polvo en edición física ya hacía un puñado de años y que por diversos motivos no jugué hasta ahora.

    Esta vez nos toca controlar a Kerrigan esa mujer que nos hizo la vida imposible en la campaña principal, tenía dudas si Blizzard podría hacer una campaña bien orientada a la raza Zerg y la respuesta fue un rotundo si, hace ver a estos alienígenas horribles desde el punto de vista más "humano" de su causa.

    Las misiones son muy entretenidas y dinámicas te da la sensación de esta controlando algo incontrolable por momentos.

    La banda sonora es perfecta en ocasiones meten "guitarreos" de Heavy Metal que van de maravilla.

    En general es una buena expansión la campaña creo que no llega a estar a la altura de la del juego base pero para los que quieran seguir esta magnífica historia de Starcraft 2 cumple bien.    … Expand
  63. DaPonti
    Mar 21, 2021
    7
    Like WoL, the single player campaign is has good variety, but the whole "primal zerg" thing didn't gel with me. Still a good game in both single and multi player, but easily my least favorite part of the campaign. Honestly, the most memorable part is the intro video.
  64. Awanka
    May 27, 2022
    7
    Pretty good example of the RTS genre. HoTS has a fun collection of units with nifty abilities to control. It has an inventive campaign with light RPG elements built in that allow you to choose abilities for your main hero and units. I was only mildly entertained while playing it however. Maybe the time of the RTS has passed, at least for me. Maybe I'm too old to control 2 armies atPretty good example of the RTS genre. HoTS has a fun collection of units with nifty abilities to control. It has an inventive campaign with light RPG elements built in that allow you to choose abilities for your main hero and units. I was only mildly entertained while playing it however. Maybe the time of the RTS has passed, at least for me. Maybe I'm too old to control 2 armies at the same time while making sure my bases are collecting resources and pumping out units. I find it annoying and stressful in an unfun way, like herding cats. I do like the unit choices that you can make in the game though. If Blizzard had leaned harder on the RPG part of the game I would have liked it better.… Expand
  65. igolrum
    May 26, 2021
    6
    I loved the original Starcraft and Brood war. And while Starcraft 2 is still good gameplay-wise and character-wise, the story is much worse. It feels like they wanted to get rid of the series. Wrap it all up and be done with it. Pretty stale and straight-forward, uninspired. No more twists, betrayals and interesting political situations, like the original story had.
    The whole Xel'naga and    I loved the original Starcraft and Brood war. And while Starcraft 2 is still good gameplay-wise and character-wise, the story is much worse. It feels like they wanted to get rid of the series. Wrap it all up and be done with it. Pretty stale and straight-forward, uninspired. No more twists, betrayals and interesting political situations, like the original story had.
    The whole Xel'naga and Duran story-line mystery especially has basically been straight up thrown away.

    Gameplay: 10
    Characters: 8
    Story: 3    … Expand
  66. joglow
    May 16, 2022
    7
    In some way it feels like StarCraft and just a little bit... rushed? I feel I just lack of something there.

Awards & Rankings

17
#17 Best PC Game of 2013
33
#33 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
52
#52 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
86

Generally favorable reviews - based on 68 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 66 out of 68
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 68
  3. Negative: 1 out of 68
  1. PC Master (Greece)
    Jun 10, 2013
    90
    The tutorials and the A.I have been improved, giving newcomers the chance to calmly try new tactics… before playing against experienced players that will go straight to their jugular. [April 2013]
  2. Games Master UK
    May 9, 2013
    85
    Accomplished, if not exactly groundbreaking. [June 2013, p.80]
  3. Hyper Magazine
    May 9, 2013
    90
    Heart of the Swarm is ScarCraft made better. Welcoming to newcomers, but never dumbed-down, the franchise at its best. [June 2013, p.66]
See all critic reviews »