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

Generally favorable reviews- based on 2138 Ratings

User score distribution:

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  1. 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 Channeling spells, lag, outdated graphics for it's time and an insane amount of bribes going to the critiques to cough out "Unique combat system" quotes whenever possible.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
  2. 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.
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  3. 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.
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  4. 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.
  5. 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.
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  6. 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
  7. Feb 1, 2013
    4
    This game requires skill, the story is fairly flat (little people who make the engineers but that something new in short, you want to spend your money do not take well GW2.
  8. Sep 7, 2012
    4
    PVP is the only part i care abut and it was ok but needs some work, specifically WvW play. Over half the time is spent running back to the fight that got boring fast. The other half was spent getting one shot by ranged and arrows from siege weapons.

    The game may be good in a few month to a year when they iron out some of its flaws but for now as a pvp it just didn't hold up to my expectations.
  9. 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.
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  10. Sep 5, 2012
    4
    Disney on steroids or PCP great graphics ,crafting looks well done but some what tedious.Characters are great stories weak least thief was .I found it little better than WOW or most the other fantasy MMOs out there. I have been playing MMos since before Ultima Online .Its good but not up to the hype .
  11. Sep 17, 2012
    4
    buy if you like semi free to play pve and uncomplicated pvp with awkward, counter intuitive controls, avoid if you like games a little more challenging
  12. Sep 27, 2012
    4
    Not a bad launch for an MMO but it had several issues like the trading post. They trying something innovative with classes being a jack of all trades. No specific tank, control, healer, dps classes. Each class is a little of each all rolled into one, its just they each do it a little different. This makes teamwork more difficult later on when people team up for dungeons causing several frustrating wipes. There are alot of pluses here but the class system is innovative but your either a like or hate it. I'm just too ingrained from other MMO's I have played like FF XI, DCUO, and SWTOR. If your willing to take a walk out of the MMO comfort zone, I suggest trying it. You may like it. I unfortunately did not. Expand
  13. 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.
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  14. Dec 24, 2012
    4
    I buy very few games usually. The hype of some friends about this made me buy it. A waste of money, for me. I got bored in the first 20 level. I simply doesn't feel part of a world. The first thing a good rpg, online or offline, should do is to have a great history/ world (Azeroth, for example) in wich you can feel part of something. I found nothing of it here. The event are something funny... for the first 3 or 4 times. Then they are really boring. Also, the fact you can group with people basically whoever they are, is something that really is against the online experience. I want to make friends and allies in an online game. This, again, is not the case. Try the game before buy it! Expand
  15. Jan 10, 2013
    4
    Nothing about this game matches the quality of the rating it has accrued. These are just SOME of my main gripes and there's a lot of them. But mostly, this game is just so !@#$ing boring.
    Questing: There's a lot of detail but the lack of quantitative reward for exploring this detail or even enjoyment you get from it is minimal. Just because you don't "pick-up" a quest doesn't make it a gr
    ound breaking system. It is, in essence, the same as every other RPG on the market. This just makes you hate exploring the lore of the game even more because you're skipping it 90% of the time.
    Lack of incentive: There is almost no incentive for doing anything in this game. Everything is spoon-fed. There's no real need to prioritize doing anything. You could assign your skills at random and still make it 80 easily. And for that matter...
    Leveling:
    Why even have a leveling cap if you're just going to adjust everything to begin with. There's not real satisfaction in gaining a level. You don't measurably "improve". In fact, you get progressively worse, suffering from diminishing returns on stats until you buy a new set of gear The fact that your levels are adjusted to your zone and all PvP is at 80 level makes a leveling system almost completely redundant. Sure, you gain more skills but it doesn't really make you more "powerful". I felt just as useless at level 80 as I did at 30 because you're limited to the number of skills that fit in your tiny action bar. Advancing to higher level zones is almost redundant because you can literally reach level 80 by grinding in the first zone you hit and completing random events. The fact that diminishing returns DOESN'T apply to higher level characters reduces the number of people in the mid-level zones making it incredibly hard to complete those group events you need randoms to walk by for.
    Combat:
    is extremely limited. You're given a set number of action bar slots for each class and are restricted to it. This pigeon holes you into the same skills, the same rotations and the same strategies for combat. Even swapping weapons seems pointless because your other set of weapons probably doesn't match the playing style you chose. Social Combat: The social nature of PvE questing in Guild Wars 2 actually detracts from its purpose. Nobody wants to join your party against a common foe, just pick up whoever walks along, kill it and they'll be on their merry way. I didn't get to talk to them, I don't even know who they are because the interface is clumsy and I'll never be able to contact them again. You just can't make friends in the world because it makes people care less about what you're doing.
    BORING:
    This game is just incredibly boring. It is a chore to play and offers almost no stimulation beyond visual. The interface is a horror, gameplay isn't fluid and you can't lose yourself in the game.
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  16. 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
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  17. 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
  18. 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.
  19. 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 ($20 maybe). Don't fall for the hype!
  20. Jan 14, 2013
    3
    GW2...really? its not even close to gw1. The story is lame, the dungons are easy pvp is dying on the vine, wvw3 and des are a zerg fest , with the additional bonus of lagging out . The classes dont even feel diffrent from one another, and its entire no-trinity system hase made it a dps fest with no skill involved. Grats anet you took a great games title and @##$ 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
  21. 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
  22. 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.
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  23. 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
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
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  26. 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
  27. Sep 10, 2012
    3
    Someone please explain to me the purpose of this game. I have waited 4 years for this game to come out and it really might be the worst game I have ever played. I love MMOs but Guild Wars makes no sense, the combat is awful , the open world combat everyone talks about is just pure chaos, you just dont feel like yor actually doing anything, just one of the horde. I just run around and really dont even want to kill any mobs as the xp is awful. I really wanted to like this game but really am so confused of how this is fun at all. Expand
  28. Sep 23, 2012
    3
    Another overhyped MMORPG that doesn't have nothing especial. Not better than TOR, The Secret World, and TERA, all things considered. The same "kill X and Y" with another face. Lack of progression. No endgame.
  29. Sep 26, 2012
    3
    GW2 is basically a first "solo" MMORPG. ArenaNet is trying to implement this idea of not having to party with anyone to do anything, at the same time you still have to party with random player if you want to experience the full content of the game. They give you more options to how you want to level up your character, but by no means one method will be enough to take you there. They are forcing you to have to go explore the map, gathering resources, assisting NPC and completing story quest. PVE dungeons are in general not well designed. AI targeting system requires more randomization, the biggest problem is that AI tends to lock on one player till they are shoot to 'death'. This makes having no player plays a fixed role particular bad with a group of "dont know what they are doing" players. the level of communication required to participate in dungeon explore mode is the highest i've seen (Your full team have to use vent/mummble or other voice communication software for this purpose) that is if you want to have a smooth run without having to roll over your dead corpse a million times. Lastly the limited skill selection is a big negative compare with the original GW, its almost impossible to play any combo as a solo player (since there is no henchmen in GW2). Overall I was expecting GW2 to be at least somewhat similar to the original series of GW. yet This is a total different game. The only advantage for GW2 over GW is that the world is open and you have an option to see other player "JUMP" around you. After played GW2 for 2 weeks, I've decide to go back to GW1, just because i like having to be able to truly SOLO everything (w/wo hench) and can easily justify what i am doing when i am in a group. Expand
  30. Sep 27, 2012
    3
    I had been waiting a longtime for GW 2, and I have been pleased with the game until this week when the developers introduced code limiting the amount of time you can spend farming for materials, loot - whatever. They claim this diminishing return code that they have injected into the game is to help stem off botters, however it negatively affects the regular player.

    On my server events
    are now dead, bots still run rampant and overall quality of the game has already degraded. The entire economy is an out of whack mess.

    Visually the game is beautiful, combat is okay and I do enjoy the puzzle aspects of the game...but those things alone are not enough to keep me interested.

    Anets communication is poor at best. Threads and topics on their official forums are moderated heavily to diminish the negativity that is floating around, or threads are disappearing alltogether without reason or explanation.
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Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 69 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 68 out of 69
  2. Negative: 0 out of 69
  1. 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. 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.
  3. 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.