Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Critic Reviews

It's overflowing with character and imagination, feeds off and fuels a vibrant community of players and performers, and it only stands to improve as Blizzard introduces new features, an iPad version and expansions. And now it's finally finished! I can't wait to see where it goes next. Job's done.

Between its friendly design and its flexible approach to a free-to-play economy, Hearthstone has successfully pulled me into a genre that I didn't care about in the least. But even more incredibly, it's kept me rapt longer than any games I've played in years, and shows no signs of letting up.

It’s easy to learn, easy to get into matches and play, and it’s fun. It’s led me to check out other digital card games — and I’m again surprised at how much I enjoy these.

If you’ve ever been curious about collectible card games but didn’t know where to begin, Hearthstone is the place to start.

The elegant simplicity of Hearthstone’s rules, its impressive attention to detail and personality, and the true viability of playing completely for free make it easy to fall under its spell and get blissfully lost in the depths of its strategic possibilities.

Hearthstone is a wonderful game. Nostalgic, simple and best of all: fun. This is the best online collectible card game you can play. Just be careful how much you spend in it.

Accessible, addictive and fun, Blizzard brings us a very interesting free-to-play, very well balanced game, that everyone interested in the Warcraft universe should try.

Hearthstone might not fully scratch the strategy itch of the most advanced CCG/TCG players, but it makes an impressive attempt. The rules are simple, so anybody can get the hang of it, but there are enough deck variations available that only skilled deck builders and players will make it high in the ranks.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is an idea as good as Magic: The Gathering was. It's very similar to Magic cards and that's great. Although it's very accessible and visual, perfect for new players and experts. Blizzard has returned to work magic.

Hearthstone is the best digital collectible card game around and an excellent “real” game as well, where the formula “easy to learn, difficult to master” really comes to life.

An amazing classic card game that surprises for its attention to detail and highly addictive gameplay.

Hearthstone seems a good fit for tablets, and if Blizzard can maintain the quality of the animations, it will become a serious phenomenon.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is the best digital collectible card game for everyone. Easy to learn and difficult to master. The musical score and sounds are just like the Warcraft Universe. But if you are a Magic: The Gathering player, you definitely won't like it.

Blizzard has put its imprimatur onto another genre, and it looks poised to succeed in CCGs with Hearthstone as it has with MMOs in World of Warcraft.

Blizzard's team has done about everything right with Hearthstone. They took tried and tested pieces from other card games, found clever mechanisms to take away their weak spots and other frustrations and offer a strong and addictive free-to-play experience.

Hearthstone is thoughtful and complex, but at the same time welcoming and almost irresistible. It may just be a card game, but it often feels like so much more.

Blizzard's first Free to Play-game offers depth without becoming complex. It takes players seriously and is very playable without spending (a lot of) money. Atmosphere, speed and great sound effects make for fast yet satisfying games, where luck and tactics go hand in hand.

Hearthstone is addictive, highly strategic, and chock-full of fun collectible card battling; the fact that it's totally free (if you want it to be) makes it one of the best values in gaming today. This is your new obsession; embrace it.

It has, through painstaking effort, upgraded the card duel into a thoroughly modern form. It has resisted the dark lures of free-to-play, and has made deep systems simple to parse without neutering them. In short, Hearthstone is borderline alchemy, turning physical systems into digital gold.

A beautifully designed game, as gratifying and addictive as anything Blizzard has ever done.