Despite some somewhat dodgy elements *cough*Alps*cough* the Beasts & Exploration DLC adds some much needed variety to the game in contracts, weapons, armors, enemies and to a lesser degree in pretty much every other game system, if you enjoy the base game grab this as soon as possible because it adds a lot to the experience.
This is a decent DLC pack, it adds 6 levels to the game (2 in each zone) with 1 of each having a boss fight, as well as a new character who is a solid addition to the crew. Throughout the new missions you can find plenty of new hats as well as items, some of the items are really good, such as a Utility item that gives +2HP and deals 5 damage to any enemy that attacks in melee, turning Billy into a beast. Fen is a strong character who can easily keep himself healed up with free heal actions, as well as fire a laser that penetrates cover, letting you nail entrenched enemies that might be tricky to get otherwise. Overall the pack is quality, but the quantity is a bit lacking considering this costs 1/3rd of what the base game does.
I want to fit a lot into a short space so I'm going to use bulletpoints: Gameplay- + Combat much improved from the original, great weapon and enemy variety, maneuverability and verticality. + Melee combat is satisfying and forces you to move around quickly to avoid death. + Upgrades and elemental effects allow for some customisation and variety. - Guns are still weak and unsatisying to use, the only exception to this rule being Gauss Cannons. - Despite the freedom one is given by the more open world you frequently bump into invisible walls or can't take a more direct route to a location. - The respawn on death system is awful, death is barely punished at all, even on higher difficulties. - Combat is generally quite easy to cheese, you can easily retreat and heal, if you min/max and buy optimal upgrade paths this becomes even more of an issue. - Fights involving large amounts of enemies quickly become tiresome, forcing you to constantly move while making small jabs at the horde of enemies on your tail. - Bugs such as large quest enemies glitching through the floor and forcing you to restart the mission, and enemies that just get confused if you leave their patrol area (both occur rarely) disrupt gameplay. Story/Characters: - Worse than the original, which had unexpectedly good writing. - Most characters aren't likeable or interesting, Kamiko is annoying and Lo Wang tries too hard to be funny, although managed to make me chuckle a few times. + You can skip dialogue and cutscenes which is great for when you just want to kill stuff. Graphics: + You can play at higher settings even on a modest rig, effects like Bloom and Chromatic Abberation can be disabled if you dislike them, visuals are colourful and not plagued by ugly filters like many other games, overall very good looking. + Combat visuals are visceral and satisfying. - Some bugs such as rain inside building, trees poking through buildings, gaping holes into the void and random freezes. Overall a solid 7/10.
While I am quite fond of the Heroes Chronicles campaigns and Tarnum, it's much wiser to have a look around on various Heroes fansites and find the archive of .h3c files for each campaign. This allows you to play each with HD/HotA/whatever enhancements or edit them if you so wish, and saves you time, hard drive space, and money. A further strike against this purchase is GOG have packaged each campaign into its own download, resulting in a total size of 3.5Gb-4Gb for all 8. If they were all in the same package the total size would be less than a gigabyte. And then compare this to the size of the three .h3c files in the free archive, at a puny 1.1MB. The only downside to going for the archive is you miss 8 intro movies (1 for each campaign), however you can probably find these online if you really must watch them.
