I've been playing nonstop since it came out Tuesday. I'm guessing AA, so far it's been a great expansion and definitely gets me back into a game I love, but that said it's nothing mind blowing. Here's my thoughts so far:
Campaign:
-Pretty solid campaign. Tons of attention to detail, unit variety, and production quality throughout. I like the choices you can make in the menu for different units and commander abilities as Protoss.
-Mission design's a little been there done that. Mostly it's just a best-of of the other two campaigns. Which is fine, but it means only 3 or 4 missions really stand out.
-Missions are a little easy, you can protoss deathball through most of them on hard/brutal and get it in 1-2 tries if you're a veteran.
-High sound and visual quality as expected in cutscenes.
-Story is tragically still complete dog ass. The protoss campaign is a bland story with basic characters and boring plot devices. And without spoiling too much, the epilogue completely derails into banana sandwich territory. Probably the lamest and most forgettable story I've played this year, which is a real shame.
Co-op:
-Really unique feel, combines the better aspects of campaign and arcade. I love that I can que for a random partner and quickly play a round, or go with a friend.
-Leveling commanders to unlock abilities and upgrades is a cool idea. Adds a lot of replay value as you gain new strategies and units.
-Co-op play is inherently fun, especially with a friend.
-Balance issues. Some commanders have clearly better abilities compared to others at certain levels. It's too easy to get bowled over by the AI at certain points if you aren't set up or picked a vulnerable commander.
-Doesn't feel too fleshed out unfortunately. Only a 2 player option, and the objectives are super super basic. Only 7 missions, 6 of which are "run to and destroy giant enemy thing," the last one is a holdout. They're sometimes so basic you barely need a partner at all. Would have been better if it had things like a couple hero missions or some minor environment puzzling to do, but you can just deathball the entire time and be ok.
Multiplayer:
-Feels as good as ever.
-I don't touch the competitive modes much. I used to be really good but playing to win is too stressful. That probably won't change with this expansion.
-Archon mode is a cool idea and feels pretty good in practice, letting you micro or macro with a friend. Adds a lot of potential for bizarre and unique plays.
-Tournament mode is a good idea to keep people coming day to day.
-New units are kinda boring. I don't really think any of them fit a niche other units didn't fill already.
-Arcade is still disappointing. You still can't search with a lobby list, only by game type, which with a thousand game types is beyond stupid. You'll still never be able to fill lobbies for anything but the most popular games.
Log in to comment