I installed Gwent shortly after its open beta started (mid 2017). My first experiences with the game were the tutorials- they were fun and mostly informative but they did gloss over many mechanics and dragged on a bit near the end. I would give them a 3/5. Next, the multiplayer matches. At first, I was facing other new players and had about a 70% winrate (because of my 2000 hours played in Hearthstone, presumably). This was alright, though about 90% of the cards in the game were locked off behind a "Grind or pay" system. Eventually, I started facing other decent players. If you didn't experience the start of open beta, it went like this: Does one player have Drought or RNR while the other does not? Then that player has about a 95-95% chance of winning the match. If both or neither have these cards, it's an actual game. It took me a total of about 200 hours of grind (quite painful at that) to unlock what I would consider a reasonable number of cards- about 80% of the available ones at the time. Then I got into high-level Gwent (above 4000 MMR, where the "real" Gwent happens). I'm going to briefly summarize what Gwent at the top 1% feels like- did one player draw better than the other (more golds, fewer dead cards, etc.)? That player has a 70-80% win chance. This happens almost every game so after a few hundred matches, this feeling of "I'm not really playing, the game plays itself. None of my choices matter." sets in. Entering for the daily quests and playing a couple games a day is enjoyable past this point but any more than 30min a day quickly turns from enjoyment to frustration, to agony. Overall, I would say check it out if you really, *really* like competitive multiplayer card-games. The main differences compared to it's competitors are a slightly lower grind until you unlock a decent-sized collection and the Witcher universe aesthetic/lore.
