With "Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm," Blizzard makes a lot of assumptions. They assume that you've already played "Starcraft II," that you're invested in the story and enjoy the gameplay. It's a confidence that would be considered hubris coming from any other developer making any other game, but since it's Blizzard and it's "Starcraft," the assumption is well-taken. As excited as they are, most fans were waiting for the game with their fingers crossed, silently praying: "I hope they didn't mess this up." Well the reviewers have good news for you, "Starcraft" fans. "Heart of the Swarm" seems like it will give you exactly what you're looking for: More "Starcraft."
The "Heart of the Swarm" campaign narrative seems to be the game's weak-point. The story of Kerrigan's revenge, is apparently hampered by hokey dialogue, plot holes and a pre-mature transition from this game's story to the final "Starcraft II" expansion, the Protoss-centric "Legacy of the Void." As Kotaku's Jason Schirer, who suggests you buy the game, points out, the problem with "Starcraft II's" story isn't that it's intolerable or boring, just that isn't incredibly well-constructed:
"Like a popcorn flick or episode of 24, 'StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm's' story is fun and entertaining, so long as you don't think too hard. Which is okay! Just don't expect much."
It's a good point. While the "Starcraft" story has been oddly compelling, there are few fans who play the solely for the single-player, and fewer still who put a premium on the game's story over its gameplay.
Mechanically, "Heart of the Swarm" is the same as it ever was. There are new units and strategies to find, but players who know "Starcraft" aren't going to miss a beat. In the campaign, "Heart of the Swarm" follows the model established "Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty:" The campaign Zerg have extra campaign-only units and missions are built to challange players in unique ways that would ruin the multiplayer campaign. One of the game's two biggest changes seems to be the focus on Kerrigan herself. Not only is the queen of blades the center of the game's story, she serves as a super-charged hero unit that can single-handedly change the outcome of a battle. Joystiq's Mike Schramm says certain missions feel "strangely (in an exciting way) like a single-player 'League of Legends' game." Schramm gave the game four stars.
The other main addition to the campaign is the game's evolution missions, which allow players to make special campaign-only upgrades that change the appearance and functionality of certain units substantially. "Wings of Liberty" featured a similar persistant upgrade system as well, but those upgrades are now unlocked by completing missions and can be changed between missions, so players don't need to make hard choices when upgrading materials. Mike Anderiesz of The Guardian called the upgrades "brilliant," but wasn't excited about the challanges for unlocking them, describing them as "more of a chore."
Campaign elements aside, multiplayer is the main event in "Starcraft II," and long-time players should get ready for more than just a few extra units. Giant Bomb's Brad Shoemaker was impressed by the wide range of new upgrades and balance tweaks, which make "Heart of the Swarm" into its own game: "While each faction only gets two or three all-new units, there are so many changes across the board in this expansion that it practically feels like playing an entirely new game. And that's very exciting."
That said, there are new multiplayer units, and they do change they way players will approach each faction. GamesRadar reviewer Lucas Sullivan's four and a half star review notes that each faction's new units allow players to mix up their strategies, but won't force seasoned players to re-invent the wheel to incorporate the new elements into their plans: "It won't take you long to grasp how these units function, and how best to utilize and counter them, giving you more strategic choices without burying you under a mountain of new information."
Though "Wings of Liberty" is a highly competitive game, not every change is for semi-pro players. For those who are first starting out or have never done well playing "Starcraft" online (like me,) Blizzard has created a matchmaking option for beginners called "training." Training serves as a sort of multiplayer tutorial, showing noobs introductory build-orders and other strategies. While the mode is a great idea, Edge is less than thrilled by its implementation, claiming that, while it helps players at a certain skill level, training doesn't do enough to help players get better at the game: "It's a more legible and less abrupt progression than before, but it still only caters to thousands of players, rather than the hundreds of thousands for whom the move to 'StarCraft''s multiplayer will be daunting." Of course this may have been their biggest concern, considering they gave the game a 9 out of 10.
So basically "Heart of the Swarm" sounds like it's exactly what most "Starcraft" fans wanted. There are more missions, more storylines, more units, more strategy. More everything that makes "Starcraft" the game you know and love. If you were expecting the game to do something different, maybe you should hold off. Then again, if you're waiting for the "new Starcraft," it might be time for you to move onto something else.
