Recent reviews by n.u.

Great game. But Hackers.. Cant even report..

5 crashes per hour

Good game, nice atmosphere and soundtrack. Becomes slightly repetitive after few days..

Played a YnAMP 43 civ giant TS world map on marathon mode - win type conquest and diplomacy only. Finished the game after playing for 6-8 hours per day for 2 weeks. My friends don't understand why one would play one match for that long.. but I had to.. just make.. one more turn..

Compared to all my friends who play DotA, I am the person who spent the least amount of time on this game

Great game but sadly not enough people/servers from India/SEA.. you can only play so much on servers with 150-200pings..

P.S: if anyone in the region notice this post, please comment. Would like to form a squad (hopefully a platoon) from the region..

First of all, let me address the "Pay to win" debate. Not really..

The game has different modes that will suit different players. Phantom draft mode is not pay to win. Each player gets to draft from 5 random packs and play with cards from the deck assembled with these packs. Collector deck is where you use cards in your inventory - and of course, more you pay, better the cards in your inventory, higher chance to win (i.e pay to win)

Also, there are modes, where you can bet on something (using the tickets system in game). If you go on a winning streak, you get back the tickets and win card packs too. If you loose, you loose the ticket. (Tickets cost money). Then there is casual mode, where you don't need to pay anything - no consequence if you win or lose.

Now that this topic is out of the way, let me give my opinion on the rest..

GAMEPLAY: fantastic. Smooth, great details, good pace, nice animations. No complaints.

GRAPHICS and SOUND: the audio and graphics are good. Keeps the game exciting. Not a lot to look at though given the genre.

COMPEXITY: I have never played any other card based game (like heartstone) but I do play DotA. The game was simple after 4-5 bot games. So no issues on that.

PROGRESSION: this is where I feel the game is a let down for me personally. I don't see the point of playing casual where there is no progression. Something like MMR or achievement systems (with rewards for milestones) would have been better. At this point, I have played 20 games and I already got bored

BALANCE: there is lot of parameters left to randomness in game. But since there are many things that are random, overall I feel each player would feel the game went fair. But, with respect to getting the best cards in you draft, I feel that needs luck. Need some balance here.

Overall, it is a card game done right. I got it for free for attending TI8. But if I were to buy it for current price, I am not sure if I would. The game is fun for the first 10 hours. Then it feels empty without any progression system. Waiting to see what kind of systems Valve would add to keep players hooked (Progression, events, lore, etc.)

Note: if you do not mind paying 10$ for 10hours of fun game, do purchase. (ofcourse game is 20$. But you can sell your cards from 10 free packs + possible winnings from the 5 free tickets for almost 10$)