Quite a pathetic effort from EA.
Gameplay 3
HP games could have a very fun gameplay with the variety of spells you could do. But it doesnt. You can only use around 10 spells and a majority of these are useless and boring to cast. Duels are therefore, quite pathetic and end up with you just running around and trying to cast spells. The quests in this, like the previous ones, are quite stupid and boring but are a necessity. Quidditch, which is one of the things they have added, is fun in the beginning but it gets boring quite quickly.
Graphics 6
Though the graphics are good, I think i prefer goblet of fire's graphics over these, surprisingly. EA just tried to hard to make the graphics look real and end up with horendous character models who move slowly and look bizarre. The castle and background colours though, do look rather nice.
Sound 7
The soundtrack may not be as good as the previous games, but it is OK. And the voice acting is very good again. Though yet again, Harry's and Hermione's voices aren't spot on, thats not EA's fault.
Story 1
HP is popular because of the story in its books. Sadly, thats not the case with the game. The game tells the story so badly it butchers it. Everything is just skimmed through and a person who hasn't read HBP will have NO idea what is going on. This also takes the epicness out of the story.
Value 1
Hogwarts is great to explore, however, the game is very slow at times so this is a pain. Also, there isn't much theyve added into the game since OoTP, so whats the point buying it? The story will barely last 10 hours.
Tilt 1
I loved the HP books, and i love a good difficult game and thats perhaps why I hated this so much. Also, HBP was one of my least favirote books in the HP series.
In conclusion, this game, like the previous game, could have been much more, but sadly, its not. Its pathetic and I would advice people NOT to buy it. It barely lasts 10 hours, but I bet some people would not be bothered to invest that much time into it, and they would wise if they didn't.