Heroes of Might and Magic V: Hammers of Fate (PC)

Considering the rabid fan following and the long wait, it's not a surprise that Heroes of Might and Magic V was picked apart by certain members of the hardcore fan base. It was criticized in more than a few quarters for a dull campaign, some glitches with the camera system and multiplayer, and simply for being too updated a copy of the late, great Heroes III. A series of patches helped a lot, though, and the game looked on its way to being one of the best in the history of the franchise. Now, however, the series takes another step sideways with Hammers of Fate. Like the original game on launch day, this expansion pack balances good points with bad almost every step of the way, resulting in yet another turn-based fantasy adventure that isn't all that it could be.

Patches won't be able to fix this one up, though. Problems here are deep rooted. The biggest issue is a by-the-numbers campaign that starts off slowly and sees you guiding Haven units in the entire first chapter. Even though the add-on features a brand-new dwarven race, Nival strangely chose to kick the campaign off with a thud by giving us five or six hours of been there, done that. This is a somewhat different Haven than the one you got to know in the original game, thanks to a mad queen who fancies herself a deity. But the units themselves are nearly identical to their predecessors except for some color changes, so the expansion still starts with what feels like outtakes from Heroes V.

Yet even when the dwarves show up as a playable side in chapter two, the scenarios don't get any more interesting. The dwarves themselves offer some neat new units like the bear rider and the magma dragon, but they lack any sort of hook to make them play in a markedly different manner than the other Heroes V factions. Even worse, almost every one of the 15 campaign scenarios is a dull slog to clear a map. While each mission is packed with standard monsters, treasure chests, mines, crypts, caverns, and the like, there isn't much challenge on the normal difficulty setting. You can generally cruise through the first two-thirds or so of each level, steamrolling opposition without breaking a sweat. You eventually run into an overwhelming enemy force or a barricaded town, but this is just a signal to retreat to one of your towns and crank out buildings and units until you've got a force assembled that can send the bad guys home to mommy.

Virtually every level plays out in this predictable fashion. Tedium is exacerbated by maps that are artificially drawn out by barricades and impassable terrain. You can rarely get from Point A to Point B without the hassle of key hunts (well, keymaster hunts, at any rate), portals, shortcuts through caverns, and so forth. Sometimes these expeditions seem like natural obstacles that a heroic fantasy adventurer would have to deal with. But most of the time they come off like cheesy ways to make you cover every square pixel of the map, and thereby lengthen the time you need to finish the game (expect a good 20 hours). So you don't feel so much like a hero on a quest as you do a factory worker trying to survive until the whistle blows.

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