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

Generally favorable reviews- based on 2136 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,682 out of 2136
  2. Mixed: 138 out of 2136
  3. Negative: 316 out of 2136

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  1. heech
    Aug 28, 2012
    2
    I haven't gamed much over the past decade, so I'm not "tired" of WoW-type style games like others might be. I started playing SWTOR earlier this year, and fell in love with much of it.. but with so many people checking out GW2 (and also a lot of questions about TOR's future), I decided to try it as well. But... it's just not working for me. I don't understand those who insist GW2's graphics are superior to TOR. I heartily disagree. Looking at the animations of my toon, looking at how he + other players appear.. to my eyes, it's just decades apart.. with what I see in GW2, it's literally something I might have seen 10+ years ago. The scenary on GW2 is certainly well done if you go for that artistic style, but not good enough that I really care about "vistas".

    I'm also just not that impressed with the gameplay. Someone compared to the SW:TOR style of combat to "playing a piano" (in a dismissive/critical sense). Well, I actually liked that... a lot. I have 2 quick bars = 24 keys I use in literally every single warzone on TOR. I'm constantly watching CDs + my opponents cast bar, working with LOS, and rotating through actions as appropriate. In contrast, I think the 5 + a few buttons in GW2 makes combat extremely boring. I auto-attack, occasionally evade, and hit whatever is off CD. I really found it extremely boring to play, and quit after about an hour. (Maybe console players used to smashing 1-2 keys will find it just fine?)

    I love GW2's WvWvW layout though. If there was a way to combine that with the SW:TOR's combat interface, I would be in heaven.    … Expand
  2. Mandrax
    Nov 19, 2012
    0
    So now we are 3 months into the game and after I gave a very favourable review I'm going to have to take it all back. It seems Arenanet are now turning this game into WoW 2.0 insofar as there will now be a gear treadmill which goes completely against their manifesto which they set out whilst developing the game.

    This was a good game until Arenanet started lying to it's customers. Sham    e on you Anet, I thought better of you.… Expand
  3. Corvin
    Nov 20, 2012
    3
    While I can't quite bring myself to rate this game as a zero even now, and while it is still enjoyable in many aspects, refugees from the hamster treadmill can no longer expect to find a home in Guild Wars 2. If you're a casual player or someone who enjoys large scale PvP but does not enjoy a dungeon gear grind, stay far away from this otherwise beautiful MMO.
  4. 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
  5. otinanai
    Sep 12, 2012
    3
    GW2 starts off very strong in the first 20 levels but most players quickly realize how poor the quest(dynamic event/heart) variety is. I can't even count how many times I had to defend a camp from X waves of enemies, or collect objects on the ground for an NPC. Entering a new zone doesn't feel new at all. Dynamic events become trivial when the players make a zerg, and most are impossible when solo/duo.

    The game makes it difficult and not fun to group with friends. If you get 20 meters away from someone in your group, they disappear both on the screen and on the map. Doing hearts pretty much forces group members to solo, and ignoring hearts doesn't feel right as you are skipping a lot of content.

    The PvE endgame is mediocre at best. The level 80 zone requires absolutely no skill, only a big enough zerg, time and patience.

    PvP combat is plagued by poor class balance and unnecessary new features like the downed state, which creates frustration whether you kill or die. sPvP is completely cut off from the rest of the game, and its progression is only cosmetic, which only a small minority of players will find interesting.

    WvW has poor performance on most computers (for example my PC gets 60+ fps in PvE but only 15 in large battles in WvW), lacks any progression which will turn off most PvPers, and only allows one and only one playstyle if you want to be effective: Zerging. Arena.net tried to imitate DAoC's brilliant RvR, but they decided not to copy important features like realm ranks/realm points, long duration crowd control and 8-man groups (to allow more playstyles like group vs group, small group, soloing) and a huge PvP dungeon like the amazing Darkness Falls.

    The positives are that the game is buy to play and doesn't require a subscription, and that the developers seem to have ambition, which gives me hope that the game might improve over the next years.    … Expand
  6. solarbear88
    Nov 19, 2012
    0
    This game was originally a 9 or a 10, you could play as you liked and be rewarded for it. But with the addition of the new Ascended Gear, the game has suddenly become very limited: grind the new dungeon 1000 times or be left behind. This transition is a betrayal of the "no gear treadmill" philosophy and makes the game more like a lame version World of Warcraft.

    After playing for a wh    ile you start to find the classes pretty limited and kind of dull. Only a few tactics are worth taking, leaving you with like 1 or 2 builds instead of the diversity promised.

    After playing them, the dungeons are generally poorly constructed and not a lot of fun.    … Expand
  7. 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
  8. Leguma
    Nov 21, 2012
    0
    All the promises that were made before release and all the selling points of this game have been thrown out the window with the latest patch.


    There was supposed to be no grind, no gear treadmills, no gated content. Before 15 Nov 2012 this game was 9/10, now it's a clear case of bait and switch. Don't be fooled by all the old reviews, and read up some current information about the dire    ction the game has taken.… Expand
  9. HelloWTF22
    Aug 29, 2012
    0
    We'll start with the dated graphics. once again an MMO designer makes a game to run in the lowest systems making a mediocre graphics experience for everyone. Then we continue with the character controls. Floaty and disconnected. You start an attack and your character takes over - you don't have real control over it.. Just like a dog you tell "attack" and "stop" and lead by a leash. Auto-attacks and tab target, once more. Not even SWTOR relied on auto-attacks and they criticized its combat as WoW clone. This is far more clonish to WoW than anything else I've played in the genre. In fact, Ranger plays the exact same as Hunter. Their in game Cash Store is ever present like any F2P title, hounding you to conveniently purchase with cash things that will take you more work to get online. People already simply purchase advantages in PvP and save themselves the time. Finally its players are very much like a cult - they'll hound anyone not sharing a perfect opinion of GW like a pariah. Death threats have been lobbed on personal emails, that's how fanatical they get. Between the mediocre gameplay, dated graphics, and mindless- aggressive cult core of players it's something to stay away from.… Expand
  10. ZteamOverlord
    Sep 3, 2012
    3
    So when I started the game, I was impressed by the voice acting and the polish of the graphics. I was also impressed with the amount of character classes i could choose between. I was also impressed with the idea of being able to customize my character's story line by choices made before the game began. Once the first 5 hours of game play was completed I was then let down by a tedious quest sytem, repetitive random events and ptiful PVP system. Im just going to get this out of the way right away, I come from the old school of everquest, Asheron's call, Ultima online ect... and am really only interested in pvp but i can apreciate a deep story driven PVE system like The Old Republic Online. In the old days you had an active choice to make at the beginning. Do I join a PVP server or a PVE server, This game gives you no option witch worried me right away. As I am going through playing multiple classes and multiple levels feeling real lonely because the quest system does not encourage teaming up, instead if you happen to be in the same area as another player,guess what, you are a team, and once the event is over you all disperse, never exchanging names or talking at all because well, what the point? Ok so I kept on going, deciding to join the pvp system at lvl 20 just so I knew what I was doing with the character before I joined. I expected a dynamic PVP experience. Instead all i got was a chaotic combat system and yet another linear experience. Go here to defend this, Run here to defend that, with no clear and defined rolls to play in the battle.The PVP was just like the rest of the game, Linear and lonely. Overall i cannot give the game the lowest score because it has pretty looking skills and spells with clean graphics that cover up a hollow role playing experience. in short, good graphics, linear and repetitive PVE experience, and pathetic and totaly seperate from the game PVP sytem. Not exactly what i was expecting, but when its free to play, how good can it be? as a side note, what the hell happened to open world PVP servers where anything goes? I miss those days.… Expand
  11. 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
  12. 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 ($20 maybe). Don't fall for the hype!
  13. tazzon22
    Jan 14, 2013
    3
    GW2...really? its not even close to gw1. The story is lame, the dungons are easy pvp is dying on the vine, wvw3 and des are a zerg fest , with the additional bonus of lagging out . The classes dont even feel diffrent from one another, and its entire no-trinity system hase made it a dps fest with no skill involved. Grats anet you took a great games title and @##$ 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
  14. 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.
  15. dotnka
    Aug 30, 2012
    1
    I would love to be able to review the game. However I find myself in impossible situation to do it although I pre-purchased it. I was able to play for two days during the Headstart during which I have encountered all possible errors and aberrant behavior. The client kept telling me it can't log-in in my account because of my firewall while my friend's account worked just fine on the same machine. Nothing unexpected till third day when I am informed by the log-in error that my account has been banned. I did not receive any kind of notification from NCSoft/ArenaNet or any other kind of messages but welcoming emails. I filed a support ticket, I got an automated copy-paste of the Support FAQ. I wait three days without knowing what is going on. After that my temporary ban is turned into a permanent ban and it seems GW2 staff does this when it believes an account has been compromised. I update my support ticket, the only reaction is that the log-in screen is now telling me the account is permanently terminated for selling gold and in-game items for real-world money. Apparently I did all that during the ban.

    Even during the short game time I had, a poor experience doesn't even begin to cover it. The all so praised dynamic events are nothing more then scripted events that trigger themselves over and over again. You end up performing the same invasion 10 times in a row if you don't like wandering around. There is no world reacting to what you do, quests are as tedious and boring as in other MMOS, they just don't show you the numbers any more: you don't even know when you will be done with killing X number of critters. The combat system is nothing they advertised, it's a combat system very similar to all other MMOs where you need to select a target and perform an ability.
    The only good and innovative part, for which I give it a 1, is that groups are not needed to share the progress of a quest or the kill of a mob and all resources and loot is client-side so you don't need to fight with other players for a resource node.
    They've spent 5 years working on this game: It's design is 5 years old with a quick patch of recent ideas and the worst customer support and automated hacking detection system yet.    … Expand
  16. ZeroGama
    Feb 15, 2013
    4
    Let me start off saying that I played the original Guild Wars for 7 years, and loved every moment of it. I even bought the two books that were released to fill the lore in between GW1 and GW2 while pre ordering my collectors edition for the day it came out. I thought GW2 would have more of the same as GW1, but sadly it doesn't. First off, Instances are gone Poof.... No longer can you explore an area with you and a couple of ur closest friends. Now there's just a pile of people that you all manage to amalgamate, collectively attacking random things chaotically. There are no strategies anymore, just annoying-ass mindless spamming of 2 or 3 skills. Second off, the skill system and combat system is dead. Gone are the days when you could hunt down specific skills stretched across the world of Tyria to collect. Now, your skills are linked with your weapon. Which you then only have 5 per weapon, and are very limited in their diversity. Honestly, every weapon and skill feel almost identical per class. It's a shame really; I remember spending hours upon hours trying to build the perfect build for PvE. And then when that build didn't cut it anymore for a new quest or mission, I'd sit around and devise a new build for specific situations. Just as Diablo III had to dumb down it's game for the masses, so did GW2.

    Next, the new and innovative event system is a clever way of deceiving players of something new. In actuality, the even system is just another grind-fest to kill X number of enemies or collect Y number of items to complete it. Like I said earlier, it's a very clever system, because thousands of people have been duped to believe they're not playing the usual MMO that requires you to grind out the same exact quests/actions over and over again, the individuals at Arena Net just covered it with a different set of clothes and a wig to make it seem new. It isn't. And it's god damned awful and disgusting that not many people realize this.

    If you're a fan of WOW and MMO's similar to it's play style, then go on ahead an check out this game, it'll probably be the "change" you've been looking for in a game. Meanwhile, if you were a fan of the first installment, stay away from this game, stay far far away.If you're looking for instanced games to play check out Path of Exile or Phantasy Star Online 2, those games you'll surely enjoy.

    -Disheartened Fan    … Expand
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. 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.
  20. 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
  21. suneater
    Dec 13, 2012
    3
    Had a great start and tons of potential but the devs have squandered it. Storyline starts out great with your choices having impact but around halfway through it gets hijacked by a Mary Sue who saves the world for you. Graphics are marginally better than the originals and most of the music is recycled from GW. Gameplay is dull with each weapon having a locked set of skills leaving you with 1 healing skill, 3 "utility" slots, and an elite skill. Most skills are bland because the devs have killed the "trinity" (aka an actual class system) leaving everyone being tanky DPS for dungeons and glass cannons for pvp. 4 months after launch and there are still tons of gameplay bugs, elite skills are almost all garbage (so bad that you forget to use them), CC & debuffs are unbalanced and boring (stuns last 1-2 seconds but cripple can stack to over a minute easily), and class customization is non-existent with barebone traits. The world is beautiful and at first fun to explore, but if you go for map completion the hearts are very tedious and all the starting zones feel the same. Endgame consists of unevenly difficult & boring dungeons, chaotic & pointless server vs. server PvP, KOTH PvP with cosmetics-only rewards, and grinding for hundreds of hours for "legendary" weapons. Overall, this is a terrible sequel and has nothing to do with the original Guild War series apart from races and some skill names. The devs are clearly building the game for the "WoW audience" and have not only abandoned their original fans but are actively alienating them.… Expand
  22. 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.
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. Undercover007
    Nov 20, 2012
    4
    Overhyped. The graphics are excellent at the time of launch, but the good features stop there. It has a disguised form of grinding that tries to fool players into thinking they are not grinding while doing exactly what grinding is: repeated kills over and over.
    The classes are a huge let down. Most have cool animations and effects but these have no impact on gameplay as the abilities are     weak and generic. All classes can do all the functions as melee damage, ranged damage, healing and support and as such excel at none which just furthers the feeling of weak classes. Furthermore you can be up-leveled (rarely) or down-leveled (more commonly) to provide a fixed challenge level. While some people like the constant challenge, this only increases the feeling of weakness since you can never enjoy the power you accrued.
    Mobs are repeated through several areas, just leveled up and with maybe a different name (not always), which contributes to the tedium after a while.
    Add to all this that it has no demo nor trial nor the possibility to sell the game you bought (as per the aggreement) nor a money-back guarantee and we have a trap where we just sank our money. All this fear of losing money on the part of the company only reflects a lack of confidence on the tittle.

    Bottom-line: not worth it.    … Expand
  26. 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.… Expand
  27. 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.
  28. Misjah
    Sep 2, 2012
    4
    Huge disappointment, completely over-hyped...
    World graphics are only slightly better then WoW and the quest system is a complete ripoff from Warhammer, just like Rift. WvW also reminds me much of warhammer open world PvP, the pvp could be great but has a big chance of ending up completely **** like warhammer did.
    The jumping puzzles were difficult and fun but nothing new having just pla    yed SWToR.
    The engine was a HUGE disappointment, the game has a far view distance and lot's of character polys, NONE of which makes the game run very well, the input delays completely killed the experience for me, without without v-sync it was horrible!
    The most exciting part of GW2 was the weapon/ability system and i had completely discovered all my weapons and abilities by level 8, taking a quick glance of the unlockable abilities and traits did not boost my excitement one single bit!
    WoWHammer2 was just another theme park clone with slightly exciting pvp, the ONLY great thing about it is the little polished lore there was, a chance for some fun WvW PvP and the fact that's it's F2P.
    For that, I give it a 4/10.    … Expand
  29. Machineman87
    Sep 6, 2012
    1
    Security is absolutely the most glaring issue with the game.

    After years of learning security best practices from other game
  30. TheBrutal
    Sep 13, 2012
    2
    Game play is boring and feels very disconnected. When you die it sends you to the ground like your having a last stand which i found to be very frustrating and frankly just not needed. As for questing it was a bit different which was nice but if you wanted to play alone and quest you can just count that out because its based on there being many people there to help you. The games not bad if you've never played an mmo before but if you are a veteran it going to be the same thing you've seen everywhere else. I give it a 2 because the graphics were good but it had nothing else going for it.… Collapse
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Critic Reviews

All reviews »
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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