For those new to the series, Heroes is a turn based strategy game in which your heroes serve as generals, leading mystical and themed troops in battle against other heroes. You manage towns' resources to build improvements, generating advantages, new trooop types, and acquiring wealth to buy troops. Heroes and towns have different flavors - a nature based hero and town will have sprites, elves, and unicorns, while an undead town will generate zombies, vampires, and bone dragons. Managing your resources, moving around your pieces, and using strategy in combat is what the game's all about.

I admit I fall into the category of 'high expectations previous Heroes player'. I anxiously awaited the release date - what new creatures would be added? What glitzy graphics? Like many other Heroes III fans, I was disappointed. Heroes IV abandoned its beautiful, colorful 2d graphic in favor of 3d isometric graphics. Even at low resolutions I find myself squinting at the newly rendered units on the screen because they've become very small, and, in many cases, their modeling makes them look alike. Towns and structures suffer the same fate - the storybook look of your towns has turned into geometric, boxy, dull looking objects. Much of the flavor has been lost. Also, upgraded units have disappeared. I enjoyed the look and bonuses of upgrading from a unicorn to a war unicorn, for example, in Heroes III, but now there is one and only one version of each unit.

In terms of gameplay, the changes are a mix of pros and cons. Combat now involves your heroes as melee pieces - just like any other unit. The con is that they are very easy to kill. The interesting plus is that you can team up multiple heroes in a single army. Another interesting development is that you don't need a hero at all to move an army around - get your hero killed and your strongest unit will take the lead. You are also free to unlease new units from your castle heroless in the same manner. Wandering armies are likely to encounter wandering monsters - another nice change - that hoard of dragons won't let you just skirt by it anymore. Lastly, in terms of new units there are few with this release - if anything, many more of your favorites will have disappeared.

Both the skill and the magic system have been updated. You have more choices, as well as the ability to mix classes or branch off into specialties. I especially like the added flexibility which the updated system has. A few other pros I enjoy are new options like caravans, which let you dispatch armies from one castle to arrive automatically at another a few turns later. It's nice to reduce some of the micromangement while you get on to bigger and better things like conquering the world.

The game's sounds have changed. Put back in (from Heroes II) is the opera singing while in town. Lost, like so much of the rest of the game, is the flavor and distincness of the different town types. Also, the game shipped with a maddening bug which repeated music like a skipping CD - something fixed later with a patch.

To me it feels like a completely different game, like a new bunch of programmers took a stab at creating a Heroes game based on a list of feature bullet points, which is why so many loyal Heroes fans have given it negative reviews. It's not a bad different game; newcomers will enjoy it very much. Those expecting a turn based fantasy strategy game will be delighted - those expecting a sequel to the popular Heroes series will find themselves disappointed and [$$]poorer.