Another three years we had to wait for this game, well, not game but rather and expansion pack for Wings Of Liberty.
I still don't understand why Blizzard does this? Three additional years just for a new campaign, story and a handful of units.
Nevertheless this game is still better, in my opinion than Wings Of Liberty because of its campaign. Although story from the original is whacky at best it is still lacking in Wings Of Liberty (Tassadar used dark templar energies and light templar energies to kill Overmind sounds like badly written D&D fan fiction, or when Mengsk never again used psi emmiter tech to bend Zerg to its will but let's not digress).
Same problems also persisted from Wings Of Liberty which I will elaborate on shortly.
Heart Of The Swarm (HOTS from now on) had better campaign composition, better missions (ones on Zerus were top notch and the upgrade missions were a delight) and story was moving in a right direction. In Wings of Liberty, collecting artifacts was not assuring enough (Hey Jimmy, this artifact, we just smash and grab it, easy money, right? No Tychus my friend, why don't we just rob one of them, Mengsk's banks or raid some of his bases, who gives a damn about this artifact of yours when robbing is easier). I mean there was a mission on a world that would be consumed by super nova and nobody bothered to say: Hey isn't this a little bit too dangerous? Why don't we try stealing something else instead. Later on we find that artifact is the most important thing but prior to that Jim Raynor had multiple chances to give it a finger. In HOTS that is not the case. Entire game is focused on Sarah Kerrigan getting her revenge and becoming stronger. Entire campaign is with some purpose and that is why HOTS was better.
As usual I will segment this game for easier read.
GRAPHICS: Same deal as the last game. It is still the same engine and the same cartoony feel. Everything that Zerg have is brown. Your base is one big brown lump with smaller brown lumps around it. Look at the world of insects. Look at yellow-jackets, bees, bumblebees, black widows, caterpillars, flies, ants... So many colors and so many shapes and forms. In the game we just see this dull brown color and occasionally a stripe or spot or two here and there. By this time, the game looks dated, RTS back then looked way more vibrant and better looking. They could have at least updated the game visually.
SOUND: Nothing much here to say, the quality is still excellent, music is a little bit dull but the quality is superb.
GAMEPLAY: Same thing with Wings. Population cap is still there, cool units are campaign only, build times are still huge, especially upgrades and base defenses are still bad. In campaign, most of the time I used stationary units to defend my base while I used Ultralisk to tank the damage. I never built a single spine crawler in campaign.
Also, if you wish a good challenge, play campaign on hard. Zerg are simply way too hard to lose with on campaign. If you fully upgrade zerglings you can simply steamroll over your opponents. Even if they are killed there is a skill which brings them back to life in your base. In the end they just end piling up until they become a sea of buzzing little critters that nothing can stop. Whatever your opponent throws at you will not be enough, you will simply overwhelm them with sheer number of those things.
Skirmish is still the same, balanced with few new units but most of the cooler ones are campaign only.
The best of the three chapters and really wroth of your time and play if you can look past some flaws (graphics, population cap and ugly units).
Check my profile for the last Legacy Of The Void review.