Guild Wars 2 PC
  • Publisher: NCSOFT
  • Release Date: Aug 28, 2012
User Score
8.0 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 2132 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,679 out of 2132
  2. Mixed: 138 out of 2132
  3. Negative: 315 out of 2132

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  1. Fuz
    Nov 22, 2012
    0
    It was a good game, lot of potential. The premises (and prOmises) were amazing: No grinding, no gating...
    Sure, it would have needed some bit of changes and fixes here and there (the greatest being the lacking of a proper LFG tool), but it was overall pretty great for a new MMO.
    But with the Lost Shores patch they trashed it all. They broke ALL their promises, they went against their own     manifesto. They went for an HEAVY grind style, a terrible gear treadmill. On top of that, the economy is ruined and prices are a real problem, especially for new players. So, if you want to buy or craft something now you pretty much have to buy money from their shop, making this a Pay to Win game.
    Really disappointed, it had potential, but now it's just another WoW clone, and WoW still does those things better.    … Expand
  2. Coeco
    Dec 3, 2012
    4
    Ah, Guild Wars 2. How the Internet have been waiting for you so long. What are they greeted with? A polished wow-clone. Channeling spells, lag, outdated graphics for it's time and an insane amount of bribes going to the critiques to cough out "Unique combat system" quotes whenever possible. As much as I like one-time fees, like with single-player games, it will only do harm to MMORPG's because they will need a steady stream of income to offer a continuous service. Otherwise, bankruptcy or P2W is inevitable. This fate can already be hinted towards on how they locked out the ability to purchase the game, being too cheap to have an adequate amount of availability on the servers while banning more users than Origin, clever NCsoft. In It's core, the game isn't by any means bad but it's just very, very, very average.… Expand
  3. Folstar
    Feb 14, 2013
    1
    This is a tacky review, sorry.
    THE GOOD: The aesthetics of this game are amazing. If you like looking at pretty pictures and running around a finely crafted world listening to good voice acting telling a better than average story then you are in luck. THE BAD: GW2 plays like a bunch of people who really liked playing pvp as dps classes on WoW got together and made a game. The laundry list     of boons/conditions that all last half a milisecond quickly becomes meaningless spam that does not lend itself well to a game you play for hours on end (pve that is, it is great for pvp). Though overall most things about the gameplay are frantic and after a short time get filtered out. Along the same lines the constant battles when you travel anywhere get tiresome. Sorry, I liked being able to run freely through newb zones in other games without constant harassment. Hey devs, if you wanted people to play together why did you put in 80 levels? Because WoW has 80 levels? Exactly. The leveling down is a cool feature, but is forced on you like so much else in GW2. Speaking of which, not being able to assign your own weapon ability hotkeys! This throwback to when games sucked for technical limitations is inexcusable in 2012/3.
    THE UGLY: Abandoning the mmo trinity makes for a chaotic cluster#### in groups. Dungeons feel like 5 individuals who happen to be doing the same thing instead of a group working together. Along those same lines the zone/group chat on GW2 is the quietest and lamest of any mmo I have played, though maybe that was just my server. Lastly, butter. This vendor will sell me milk, cheese, sour cream, and BUTTERmilk, but if I want butter I have to go kill monsters? The asari can build portals all around the world but haven't figured out butter? Why is a cave dwelling monster man able to make butter (into perfect bars that they carry in cloth bags) but nobody at the huge crafts/artisan market in the sprawling city can? What crap.
    VERDICT: A very pretty package for a game that makes huge advances for MMOs while still managing to be a WoW clone that utterly fails at finding good solutions to MMO problems. Maybe worth a playthrough for the story in a purely solo run, but overall a bad online game.    … Expand
  4. Jack91
    Oct 1, 2012
    3
    Got the game even at it's high cost because of the hype. Installed it levelled to 22 and still didn't like it. Graphically good yes but when I fight things, the moves you get just are not satisfying. I'm not sure why so many say WoW is graphically terrible, when I turn everything on Ultra with 4x AA and SSAO it's wonderful so clearly you either need to change the options or get a better card or LCD screen. The game still isn't a patch on WoW, I can see quests from explanation marks and not silly love heart icons. Joining PvP in wow is fun and easy, dungeons, raids, all because of integrated functions using the finder tool. This just doesn't have the edge at all and sorry but if your praising it just because it's free you need to open your eyes.… Expand
  5. Reaktorblue
    Aug 30, 2012
    3
    The game has been a complete disappointment. Graphically I'm not impressed. You would think in 2012 the graphics would be better. In addition I find the movement to feel very unnatural. While the game started fun, it quickly became a chore.

    Worse came when on the second day a plethora of accounts getting hacked. Just a complete disappointment altogether.
  6. vahn
    Feb 15, 2013
    0
    This is going to be my last attempt on trying to be serious on this game...since everytime I boot it up, it gets worse and worse everytime and I'm myself impressed by how bad this game gets the more I play. I have leveled over 50 and played a lot by exploring and doing all sort of quests, all sorts of actions, and again I tried the crafting after months of its release (since I bought it on launch). I initially said it was a great game due to the classes being well detailed, which ended up to be sort of a fake statement since all classes are basically "jack of all trades" class: you only get a different set of skills and while I appreciated the fact that they tried to remove the "holy trinity" (tank, dps, healer), this lack of feature makes every class basically a boredom due to the fact that you'll never feel unique: you're one of the crowd, and I don't see that point in a mmo where you'd wish to stand up among the crowd: it's that what makes an mmo worthwhile. I also mentioned how the game gives you different ways to quest. and events that are varied and different...but after a while you'll just discover that it's still the same quests just disguised as a "different" event, without mentioning that they can be boring too since you are, again, one of the crowd and I saw myself just spamming the same skills. About the skills, I initially mentioned that I liked it, but eventually I opened my eyes and I saw just how limited it was, since you'll just be spamming 5 skills in total, plus 5 more that can be set by yourself later on...but it is just not enough to keep the game fresh and I remember being bored just after few weeks of gameplay after release. Also the combat states that they hoped to be dynamic and always on the move, by giving you also the possibility to dodge and to fight while moving...and again you'll see just as a disguise for the same old routine; the dodge works sporadically and unless you're EXTREMELY precise, you can still be hit and make your dodge completely useless. Also, you have only 2 dodges, and once you're over you can easily stand still: even if you run their hit range is bigger than yours, and unfortunely this leads into some very overpowered enemies that can take basically 1/10 of your health in one hit (worst example: as a warrior, I received a critical hit of 990 from a NON-veteran/elite enemy...and I was level 11-12, and had only 890+ hp). It is engaging at times...and at first, but then you'll see the truth in a second: it's not fun and it is repetitive. I also mentioned how the shared resources is good...and is still good! But on the other hand the crafting system, while a little improved by lowering some items (I "think"...) it still remains hard to improve and I honestly never tried to improve it due to the fact that it requires so much material grinding that it would turn off any will of trying. And while some may say "get a guild" or "use a guide" to me, I say instead if I'm forced to ask for help, what's to enjoy about the professions?". The graphics are still great and I haven't got much to say: it still remains the best graphics I've seen so far. Although, the dubbing can be mediocre at times. The story, while I liked that you could create a story for your avatar, it's the same as the rest of the game: it's just a disguise that after some quests completely disappears and reveals nothing more than a simple questline with choices to make (which changes only few things by the way). While interesting, AGAIN, the freshness disappears rapidly and becomes a boring campaign that shows nothing more, and nothing less. I also mentioned that while there are 5 races, this is the game where I basically played one, since most of the races are...ugly. This is still personal and while I enjoy that they added more races than the first game, to me the human is still the only good race to play with (or the charr: they're awesome!). And for last, the community. I play in one of the most crowded server (Aurora Glade) and everytime I play...I hardly see anybody around! What happened? Even when I started a new character the places had barely few people around: I was playing alone all the time! Nobody even talked in the general chat (except cities) and while I'm not at cap level yet I've seen more players in the starting zones in many other MMORPGs, and this game supposed to encourage team work! That alone is why I quit, and why everyone should be aware of this game: I wouldn't bother if it wasn't of it's welcoming appearence but it soon shows how fake all the premise was and how basically it has nothing fresh into it. Not the worst MMORPG, but it's very close to it. You have been warned.… Expand
  7. nsignific
    Sep 3, 2012
    0
    I hated it before I played it (wasn't pleased by vocal fans touting it's many "new" features, none of which were actually new). Having had a go at release, I liked it at first, felt better than most, graphics were OK but not great (really low poly counts), but with some impressive layouts (PVP) and some really dull ones (PVE).

    After a couple of hours playing I realized it's just **** Th    e floaty animations, disconnected feel of the controls, boringly simplistic skills (mesmer may be an exception) and a pointless dodge function. I went from "hey this combat feels ok" to "i want my WoW back" in the time it takes to finish the battleground tutorial. Hated the questing system, auto-grouping is OK but it just makes everything so mindless and repetitive - which is what they hoped to avoid with dynamic events.

    Character progressions is nonexistant in the true MMO fashion - even as far as themeparks go. You activate skills by using the appropriate ones before hand - something which has no point other thant to keep your interest the first couple of levels (which is how long it takes to unlock them ALL). You're insta max level in BGs, which can be useful if you don't like to level (and therefore don't like MMOs), but I don't have to explain what an oxymoron that is, do I? They could've easily done tournament servers ala WoW, where you can create max level characters, if that's your game.

    tl;dr, don't belive the hype.    … Expand
  8. Amadus
    Sep 1, 2012
    4
    I won't spoil anything here, but the game is no super marvel. This is just another cog in the great MMO wheel migration. Another game churned out, another spin taken by a huge nomad gaming community. The perk being that you only pay once is a huge draw, and yes you can assume I am a player who is hardly pleased by the MMO spectrum. To break it down, the controls are a 2.5 for me. The characters reactions to my inputs are a 2.5, this goes for movement animation gliding and the such. Yes, I am nit picky. (Not a latency issue unless it's server side, my ISP services are Broadband 250Mbps DL and 15 Mbps upload with no network interference.) The Graphics are amazing, absolutely and I won't touch that because lets face it, that's not what makes a game fun.

    The narrative and story is flat out suck, I won't bore you with this because I am comparing it to TOR and while that game is not the epitome of story, in the standards of MMO, it's the highest there is. The pvp system is interesting and plays similar to Warhammer online, albeit improved and it has it's own level of excitement. Combat mechanics are your standard fare but with some interesting twists on how things are utilized... Like the great sword for a certain stealthy caster class. It still comes down to being the exact same thing as any other game. Push this, cast that, move this way, avoid the fire, kite kite kite kite. Sadly, you can't escape this kind of mechanical build for the MMO genre, it's just what works best.

    Still, I feel this game will go the way of all current MMO types. The main base will work hard at it, play hard and at the 3 month mark, you will see the servers start to dwindle in population size. The 6 month mark we are going to see free server transfers and server merges. It will go the way of the Old Republic and settle into it's normal numbers and have a nice base of players. I will not likely be one of them but I will give the game 6 months of my time and post another review then. It's not awful, it's just another mmo that doesn't push or change anything in any extreme manner. Weapon swapping isn't new, it's just given a bit more range and utility other than stat dancing. The one thing I do like is how the Thief plays out and I will be looking to push this class as far as I can. In comparison to other MMO games of the current few years, TOR and GW2 are the only ones I will be bouncing between because the rest really can't touch either of them. TOR has a long ways to go and I hope GW2 is the motivation to make that game grow into a great f2p game to bounce to when I get sick of GW2 and vice-versa. My only other problem is that I feel coddled in this game. It does good for a large player base with a wide range of tastes but I feel there is nothing that will keep me tied to the game in the end of all my time spent. This is of course, my personal opinion and I don't expect to have anyone see it as I do.    … Expand
  9. UnclearImage
    Aug 31, 2012
    4
    I preordered the game, and although they did have some start up issues and a few very unfortunate people got hacked- it had a fairly good start. So I will stick to the game itself.

    The graphics are great, the chara customization is lacking- there's very little you can do to REALLY set yourself apart. The pre-sets range from good looking to not so good looking, and it seems you cannot ha    ve a chara with red hair which is weird. Crafting -The crafting system is the real grind of this game, in order to craft you need to gather the mats from nodes AND npcs. In the form of farming mobs for a chance to drop a specific crafting component. You then craft the separate parts and combine with the npc dropped item to craft a weapon/piece of armor. Without those npc dropped 'tokens' or whatever they're called- you cannot craft. So you either farm, or buy that mat very disappointing when you're crafting and you hit a wall because you haven't been farming mobs lately.

    Leveling- Quests will only get you so far, i.e. a 1-15 area doing 100% completion according to the game, will leave you at level 12-13. The common solution from the player base is farm 'dynamic' events, pvp, craft, or do something else to level. If you just wanted to Quest, or Craft, PvP to level, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. It is possible to level doing 1 specific thing but it will require grinding, except questing since there are only so many quests available. Dynamic Events - Pre-scripted events that repeat on a random time scale, they attack you while you're crafting, and remove your waypoints so you can't warp. They never go off when you're around and need XP but seem to go off 2-3 at a time when you're busy. Mounts- They don't exist get used to running around taking 4-15 minutes of your life during WvW hoofing it.

    WvW - Great idea, good balance, great atmosphere, boring as heck to run around in, siege equipment seems to cost too much (at a low level) to make it worthwhile, would love to see more siege equipment.

    PvP - Fast paced chaos, I personally didn't like it. Everyone has a heal and when they're 'downed' they have a lot of stupid moves that delay the inevitable and WASTE your time. Irritating to have someone dead, surrounded by 4 of your teammates right about to be 'finished' magically teleport away, making us move to them, and restart the 3-4 second cast. Boring as crap, I joined PvP to PvP not play chase the guy that lost already.

    Weapons - If you roll a class, and get a weapon you get 5 skills- don't like em? Tough, that's what you get for the next couple of years you'll play GW2.

    Overall- Honestly I waited for GW2 to come out, it FINALLY get- I logged in, played for 3-4 days for a couple hours a day then logged off. I have no real desire to play it, even free. I have no enjoyment, farming for xp because the quests don't get me leveled, wandering into areas that are 3-4 levels above me and doubling back to find a event that's my level. Trying to craft but realizing I didn't farm mobs enough and having to go back and grind to get mats to craft to get gear so I can do more dps. It may appeal to some people, but right now- I'm writing this review instead of playing the game, because it seemed more enjoyable to me at the time.    … Expand
  10. Ixnatifual
    Sep 27, 2012
    0
    Yet another overhyped MMO that turned out mediocre. Basic gameplay feels really clunky here, perhaps even worse than Warhammer Online. It's missing that MMO feel of games like World of WarCraft and EvE and feels more like a kindergarden. Somewhere in the construction of this game ArenaNet missed many of the important things of the genre. Building your character, the feel of being in a world, and perhaps most importantly, HAVING FUN.… Expand
  11. CravenKnight
    Dec 22, 2012
    0
    Has potential, but one major let down. I bought this game planning to finish it over the course of a week at my grandmother's house, however it turns out that this is a multi-player only game. Whose stupid idea was it to not only make it a multi-player game, but to completely omit any single-player modes?
  12. ItaJohnson
    Sep 27, 2012
    0
    Ok, time to finally let this drop. i tried to give them time and it was (fortunately for them) a busy month, but it wasnt enough.

    Guild Wars 2 is the latest in a growing line of mmorpgs (IT IS NOT AN ACTION GAME!) that are severely over hyped and under developed. Despite all their nonsense about not releasing it "until its done" what we have is bugs across every possible system in the g    ame. Almost asif NC Soft said "finish it up or we are not paying you" and they did. From account security (always fun having 200+ emails fill your inbox to tell you that ip addys from china are attempting to log into your account) to quests in general (there is nothing "dynamic" about scripted events sorry kids) bugs bugs bugs. Perhaps if they had done a proper beta test instead of a bunch of B/S hype generating weekends they could have fixed them before launch... but no, the AH still goes down daily, the guilds bug daily... there is nothing that isnt broken on this game!

    Visually it falls short of the mark too, while they assured us it would "support dx10" LIES! the closest thing to this game is honestly AOC, both in the amount of hype concerning it, and the dismal product that got released.

    Gameplay... [tab]1-2-3-4 ever heard that one? well thats all you are getting here too.

    Sound- the sound is really good actually, too bad it is the LEAST important thing about a game! But hey, they atleast got something right... although its kind of stupid to be told you have been poisoned 3 min after it wears off... but again BUGS!

    Over all i would give it a solid 5, meaning that this game is average in EVERY POSSIBLE WAY. It is not above average on ANY level! But seeing all the BULLS HIT 10's i am going to do the right thing and drop it. if anyone actually reads this theyll know the truth, otherwise metacritic is kind of a crap metric since it LETS B/S scores through.. even on such a MASSIVE turd such as guild wars 2.

    i cant express enough what a totally disappointing turd this game is.    … Expand
  13. Katabug
    Aug 29, 2012
    3
    Try this game before you buy it! Borrow a friends account or wait for a free trial or something, but don't spend money on it until you actually know what you're buying into. There's not much more I can say that the other negative reviewers haven't already covered. But this game is simply not worth $60 ($20 maybe). Don't fall for the hype!
  14. MikeJezZ
    Apr 18, 2013
    2
    This game is average at its best. But when you ding level 80, the game start to be boring real quick with lack of content. There's no progression or any reason to do PvE or PvP.

    I had so high hopes.
  15. tazzon22
    Jan 14, 2013
    3
    GW2...really? its not even close to gw1. The story is lame, the dungons are easy pvp is dying on the vine, wvw3 and des are a zerg fest , with the additional bonus of lagging out . The classes dont even feel diffrent from one another, and its entire no-trinity system hase made it a dps fest with no skill involved. Grats anet you took a great games title and @##$ all over it. Oh yea get ready to get dinged into the cash grab trading post, pfft ..and no farming, free to play is still to expensive, it feels like SWTOR all over again with all the problems they fail to adress.… Expand
  16. kcomeby
    Aug 29, 2012
    4
    New record, i got tired of a MMO in 2 hours.

    PVE is non-existence. PVP is no better than Tera. There are some useless things like dodge, environmental weapons as feature an they are not enough.

    If you have few friends who will join tournaments with you, maybe you can enjoy it.

    I can't understand people who gives this game a 10.
  17. Tinsoul
    Sep 28, 2012
    1
    I seriously don't know what people see in GW2 I must be missing something. It's an okay game, but nothing amazing. At best it's average. A very safe vanilla amusement park like game, take you from one attraction to the other. No matter how dull and pointless that attraction is. GW2 doesn't live up to the fun GW1 was, and within 30 minutes of playing GW2 I couldn't wait to log off simply out of bordom. Check the weather was more interesting. I've played 3 hours in total, and I had to force myself to play that much. There simply isn't anything new here, and oh soooooo boring.… Expand
  18. Whookares
    Nov 30, 2012
    1
    Played this game for a couple of months and found that its just too buggy. Many dungeons to not work and the new fractals dungeons crash constantly (usually toward the end). The game is full of cheaters and its just a very bad game would not recommend it to anyone. Give it a year or so for them to work out the bugs and stop the blatant cheating.
  19. graphite
    Sep 3, 2012
    2
    This is one broken piece of software. So many events and dungeons are broken, preventing you from completing areas ... but you will throw away a couple of hours before you realies you have waisted your time. No AUCTION house, well there is one but it's broken too. SHUT forums wtf? Bots, hackers and the list goes on. Worst of all, it's the same wolf just in different clothing
  20. rubin
    Dec 28, 2012
    3
    My, my, ArenaNet surely did it's homework in researching "things that every MMO fan seems to want". Beautiful graphics, excellent music, huge open world, no subscription fees - all of that you can find in Guild Wars 2. Too bad that in their pursuit for a perfect MMO formula, ArenaNet forgot to add one critical element to this otherwise perfect equation - fun. No argument for PvP balance can overrule the fact that restricting your class to only a handful of skillsets (as opposed to hundreds in GW1) was an absolutely horrible design choice that doomed the entire experience from the start. The new questing system is also vastly overrated. It really doesn't matter if I have to walk to the NPC or have the quest activated on the go, when it's still the same kill & fetch bullsh*t every other MMO has already done to death. Biggest disappointment of the year.… Expand
  21. Midnightmare
    Feb 1, 2013
    4
    So i used to played guild wars 1 a LOT!!!! And i missed it and loved it........so i bought this and was hoping for more of the same. A game that didten focus on grinding but skill instead! A game were skill would matter more than time! But unfortunately guild wars 2 seems a bit the oppersite, only really skill based feature left fro me seems to be the dodging.......and thats only really good vs range attacks.
    The PvE seems pointless easy, click and wait more or less.

    used to be fun and challenging, picking the right skill and weapon for the right mob.
    Sure it used to suck when you got a bad team for an instance....but it also gave a rewarding feeling when you made it.
    Now i get the feeling of "what happened? Did i win? Apprently so?"
    And again the grinding...."sigh"
    In guild wars 1 a "grinder" was a noob in a fancy armor that didten do anything.

    I dont even like what they done about the grafics.......seems you get a lightshow for just for swining a sword.
    I guess thats a personal opinion but I like magic and badass creatures in a world to feel magic. and not something that comes out of my belt buckel for no particular reason.

    Didten really like the skill system in guild wars 1 but now i miss it :P


    Once this was a skill based game.
    Now its just a standard MMORPG like all the others.    … Expand
  22. ryn
    Oct 15, 2012
    4
    I'll keep this short. The graphics and sound come together to form a breathtaking world. Unfortunately, this alone isn't enough to make a compelling game. The combat is fun and engaging (perhaps more so than in competing titles) for the first couple of days. But I have yet to play an MMO that manages to keep it interesting after that and GW2 is no exception. Unfortunately this hits GW2 hard, because as the developers pointed out many times: there is no "carrot" in GW2. What's supposed to keep you playing is the fun of playing the game itself (walking around killing things, exploring, doing dynamic events, etc.) and NOT loot rewards. Well, general game-play quickly becomes sleep-inducing. Crafting is a major gold-sink and feels like a waste of time, even if the interface itself isn't bad. The economy is a complete joke, with 99% of items selling at vendor price and the other 1% climbing to insane new heights every day. Unless you've played from release and speculated your way to huge profits when various recipes were changed or discovered, you are going to be dirt-poor from 1-80 and beyond. The dungeons are boring and frustrating at the same time, but to expect differently when you put 5 classes that all do everything in a dungeon that you over-tune to hell to make it "challenging" is madness. World-vs-World PvP is a zerg-fest of epic proportions and if you think that structured PvP will appeal to you, go play Dota2 or LoL instead for a much more complete and fun experience. The personal story is decent up to level 50 or so, then it looses pretty much all it's appeal and turns into another terrible, unrewarding grind.… Collapse
  23. Demonio
    Aug 30, 2012
    1
    It is a zerg fest, fun in the first hour of play but then really boring ... loading everywhere ... queue for open rvr LOL
    This game really suck a lot!!!
  24. Tundra
    Nov 26, 2012
    3
    After playing this game since release, ArenaNet are probably one of the most inefficient developers ever to grace the MMO industry. The game is riddled with bugs only to be riddled with more bugs every update. These bugs rarely even get fixed let alone be noticed. Take note that they have a tendency to ignore genuine player complaints and they fail to keep their promises. The fact that their PvP side of the game doesn't even have a global leaderboard is certainly troubling (yeah, e-sport, right). The PvP is a huge let down (the only mode is conquest) and the PvE side is just subpar. Class balance is totally out of whack. The actual classes have bugs from the beta to this day. The developers are slow and incompetent and It's honestly inexcusable. They'll be the ones to actually kill their own game.

    I originally gave this a 10 but it looked so great at release. Now they've shown their true colors when it comes to how horrible of a slow and inefficient development team they are. I'm pretty much fed up with MMO's after this.    … Expand
  25. webtiger
    Mar 10, 2013
    0
    after months the game still has some of the initial bugs and the improvements made to the game are not really improvements but stepback´s so anet has to do better if they want to sell games because the game has stagnated and is slowly dying. and check once and for all the lag problems that are the worst of the game.
  26. Zaydin
    Sep 29, 2012
    0
    Guild Bores 2 would have been a more appropriate title. Bland character design, bland questing, dull, repetitive combat, no end game, bland voice acting. Couldn't play for more than two hours before getting tired of it and quitting. Story is completely forgettable, as well, and things like 'dynamic events' are little more than gimmicks. I had no fun what so ever with this over-hyped game.
  27. Surrealis
    Sep 2, 2012
    2
    I rather dislike a lot in this game. For all the hype, I expected a lot. However, the graphics are nothing to write home about, the story is not that enjoyable, and the combat system simply isn't engaging. I cannot recommend it enough that you try this game for 6-8 hours before buying it. Be sure to play it for a while, you'll notice many people are adjusting their reviews as time goes on.
  28. Ectogamut
    Sep 11, 2012
    2
    Unfortunately, I fell for the overwhelming amount of great reviews for this game. After seeing that the game had "sold out" of digital download copies, I thought, "maybe this is the mmo to end all mmos." So I rush down to a brick and mortar store to pick up a hard copy, install, create an account. Within 8 hours I get an email telling me that some clown in China is trying to access my account....great! Anyhow, I launch the game expecting pure awesomeness. What I see is a graphical amalgamation of Wow and Aion, which works out pretty well, because if you average out the years in which those engines were put into play, then you come up with graphics circa 2007...that's generous. Everything else is completely predictable - kill this, collect that, don't worry about the story. This is what killed SWTOR in my opinion; you can't try to polish up the things you like about various MMOs, slap them together and expect a miracle. And that's what you see here - a little bit of WoW, Aion, Rift, SWTOR, and a few of the legacy items that made the first GW successful, but ultimately the game is devoid of any revolutionary mechanics. On the other hand, I've been playing The Secret World for a little over 2 months now, and besides the very few bugs remaining, it has captivated me from day one! Fantastic gfx, engrossing storyline, challenging skill system, the ability to be absolutely anything with the mere swapping of skills that are available to everyone. While it may not be for everyone, at least it advanced the genre so that people can see where we could and should be with these games. How fans tolerate the same mediocre fodder is beyond me.… Expand
  29. alecient
    Sep 3, 2012
    0
    For me this game looks quite unattractive because of high fantasy setting that is so popular in MMO genre in our days. Visuals are also not so great, world design is quite childish and of course tons of too colorful SFX in more or less large combat. CPvP is the only thing that can save this MMO since there is no other end-game content because mass PvP seems to be random zerg based by design (due to long queries all serious guild coordinated action is usually impossible).… Expand
  30. MuhOo
    Nov 9, 2012
    3
    Y U NO AWESOME? The game tries so hard to do everything right but does a lot of things worse than any other game in this genre. The combat system was announced to be action oriented, what did we got? Wow combined with tera but its neither as accurate as WoW's nor as good as teras'. The questsystem is nice but the levelflow is too confusing and a more indepth tutorial would have been great. The jobsystem is well done but rather confusing for a beginner because you have to produce so much trash to advance in the skills. In the end 3 charakter between 18-36 and los my interest after 2 weeks :/ disappointing… Expand
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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
90 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 69 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 68 out of 69
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 69
  3. Negative: 0 out of 69
  1. PC Master (Greece)
    Feb 6, 2013
    90
    GW2 has made a powerful impact on the MMO scene, confirming years of expectations. Stunning presentation and revolutionary design guarantee a thoroughly enjoyable experience. However, it’s not flawless, nor complete. The beautiful vistas, the massive PvP element, the rich leveling experience- those can offer hours of gameplay, but the endgame is desperately seeking for enrichment. [November 2012]
  2. Gaming Nexus
    Jan 2, 2013
    95
    Guild Wars 2 surpasses the original in every aspect, from its massive and atmospheric world to its addictive and engrossing gameplay.
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  3. RPG Fan
    Nov 28, 2012
    80
    After spending fifty hours with GW2, I have a lot of praise for ArenaNet's work and the way it changes up some of the typical trappings of the MMO. And yet, I find myself thinking less and less about it each day. It's not a declaration against the product, mind you, but simply a fact that this game still is very much an MMO, and your enjoyment will directly relate to how much you enjoy the genre. For many who were hoping for a clean break from MMO design philosophy, Guild Wars 2 will probably come across as a slight disappointment. It pushes the genre slightly forward, however, and could lead to even further development in the future.
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