Almost exactly like the first, but a few new additions,
GAMEPLAY: 8/10: The gameplay itself is pretty fun, but it takes a mission or two to actually learn how to play well. The mixing of RTS and button mashing had never been done before the Kingdom Under Fire (KUF from now on) games. You could be engaged in melee with your hero, fighting off a couple troops of orcs, and decide you want your archers to attack them as well, you just pop up your trusty Map, switch to your archers, and tell them to attack the guys attacking you. It's that simple to command multiple troops while already engaged in combat. The reason I gave gameplay and 8/10 is because the gameplay could have been enhanced a bit. Like waypoints and other such things, when you move troops, their pathfinding skills are sometimes horrible. (For instance, on a mission I played last night, my troops ran around in a circle twice before actually going through the forest to the area I wanted them to.)
GRAPHICS: 8/10: The graphics in this game are pretty good, nothing groundbreaking of course, but good. You can have many orcs, humans, dark elves and the like all in one screen fighting. The sheer numbers that can be on screen all at once is great. I do have a complaint though, although the voice acting isn't bad, the character's lips do not move except up and down every once in a while.
MUSIC/AUDIO: 4/10: Just like the first, it's pretty much the same song played over and over again, never stopping. Ever. The voice acting is kinda cheesy too.
USER FRIENDLY?: Partially: The complaints I have in this department is the fact that they took out the tutorials, or rather, the `training' during campaign. So basically the new people are stuck learning the entire game by themselves, unless they have friends that know how to play. The second complaint I have is that nearly all the `beginner' missions are more slated toward people that have already played the game. They require strategies and planning, which a newcomer wouldn't know too much about. Luckily though, Ellen's missions were slightly less despairing than the others, so my friends didn't get too discouraged with the game. I think that those were the biggest disappointment in the game.
XBOX LIVE: 8/10: This is where the game gets fun. It's basically just like campaign, wherein you get Experience to boot up your troops and get new troops to combat human enemies, enemies with actual intelligence and strategies.(most of them, anyway.) Although there is one, terrible and horrible problem with Xbox live. The lag is horrible. I mean horrible, for your heroes at least. When you're fighting in melee with your hero, you can't control him in real-time. In fact, you have maybe a whole 3 seconds before he does what you just told him to. I once spent a good 2 minutes watching, the controller not even in my hand, my hero run around hitting things while I was powerless to make him turn. Or anything like that. The other troops don't lag, and your controls on them don't lag either. It's usually just your hero in Melee.
Now onto the differences between The Crusaders and Heroes.
There are a few noticeable differences and a few not-so-noticeable.
First off, System link is gone, there is no longer ANY form of multiplayer other than Xbox Live. Although, there IS a custom game function in the single player menu (This allows you to use any char you want, and you have 1 million XP to use on that char and his troops.) There are new heroes, of course. But the old ones are still there, and with new moves. Also, there are three new troops, Earth Golems, Thunder Rhinos, Flame Wraiths, and Ice Maidens. These troops are pretty good, although they require 25 of their specified magic to make. And last but not least, you can have up to SIX people ply all at once, on teams or free for all.
That sums up my review on KUF:Heroes I hope it was helpful to you.