In real life I enjoy trading card games like MtG and Pokemona lot and am quite proficient at them, so I had a lot of fun with this game in the first few hours when everything was fresh and new. I felt there was a lot to discover. After some 20-30hrs in though that feeling changed. Ultimately the deck building part, which I enjoy most, is very limited. Its not about playing different variations and builds, what in MtG is a reanimator, voltron, mill-deck etc. Whenever you get to choose between cards with time it becomes obvious which cards are useless, which are okay and which are must haves for the character. That and the overall rather small card pool per character sort of turns this into a get-your-build-together game, or not. I would have liked to focus on certain cards or effects and build around them instead of being forced basically picking the same stuff over an over again. On a sidenote: With the monk character I wasnt able to beat the game once despite many tries. The switch your stance style just seems clumsy, as with more cards in your deck you dont draw the required stance cards anymore and really all it takes is to get stuck in the double-damage stance once, where one also receives double damage, which in the given instance is fatal even from high health. Trying to not do the stance thing also doesnt work, as the characters card set then doesnt allow for nearly enough dps. If you want to give it your own try get it on a discount. I dont think the full price is warranted.
Just wanted to applaud GOG for actually including the fan made Skillwheel in the default installation. That's true love for games! Homm5 TotE together with HoMM3 and HoMM2 are the best of the series. Played HoMM since I was a kid and always love to come back to it!
CON - Most of my highly levelled starting team (5hours+ invested) has been wiped (on easy difficulty) after swapping in a recently unlocked new minion. Why would you punish the player for trying their new toys? How is one supposed to safely learn how a new composition works? - becoming repetitive after a while PRO + role-switch to bad guys is a funny idea + many minions to choose from + voiceover is entertaining
