Let's just say it takes Wings of Liberty and gives it a more colorful, immersive and entertaining news flash.
At first glance as a fan your first question is the single player. What can we expect? Is it more intense? More thrilling? How is the story panning out to be? Well as we quickly dive into it we find that it completely addresses an entirely new perspective, the Zerg, of course it had to be what else was the game based on at this point in the 3 part series. The campaign doesn't disappoint, except in maybe one aspect but we'll get to that real soon. We quickly find as we play it that it's definitely what it's panned out to be in the minds of die hard fans. It's taking the campaign to a whole new level, and about 20 hours in you're thinking damn and we're not even close to finished. Oops. You just finished. And as I mentioned earlier its only disappointing trait reveals itself to be the campaign length. Although fun it does agitate some.
The multiplayer however, is a whole new experience. It's faster paced for some, more mind boggling for others and the map settings have completely changed, snow, high cities and other radical landscapes dot the way for players to battle it out on. Players find many new units, and tons of new strategies for which to overcome their opponents and to the excitement of some the overall game seems more colorful, more embracing and works to bring you in to which it succeeds. Players can choose to battle it out in auto matched battles ranking up the improved and more progressive league and ladder system, or slug it out in popular fan created custom games that take the Starcraft 2 editor and Engine to a whole new level. Whatever your calling you won't be disappointed with the hundreds of hours of entertainment calling to you.
A complaint however does loom in such a "perfect" title. The lack there of in more multiplayer units. Ones such as the Warhound ever present on the retail box aren't present in the multiplayer. During the beta they were deemed as a problem to the overall balance of the game and to save time it seemed they were chopped right out of the final release at least for the time being. This in turn has left the game feeling a little lacking in new units.
Heart of the swarm in the end builds up to be a highly successful sequel, a beloved exception to improvement of an already fantastic game, a popular title that will hold off the fans for years to come, assuming blizzard is as slow as usual finessing their final sequel to the Starcraft 2 series which addresses the Protoss.