The game that took thousands of players' hearts and never let them go, this is the game that Bethesda still uses as a carrot to bait people into buying their modern shovelware. Play, but be warned, there is nothing else like it, and you will carry that weight with you after you have finished.
Playing other 4x games and in general strategy games, after playing this game, feels like a limited experience, only saved by modern UI and graphics. This game has so much to do, epsecially the Caster of Magic for Windows version. It's really worth playing: If you're patient enough to learn. No hand-holding here like in Civ games, it will beat you and take your lunch money, until you get better. And the moment you get better, it becomes marvelous.
I started playing Gwent in the BETA, and have been playing now and then ever since. I picked up the Witcher games and books, because I found Gwent to be fun. This was my gateway into the Witcher franchise, and I am happy that it is so. I like to experiment, I like to build my own decks, around concepts or themes. I don't like to follow guides, and I don't see the point of them unless I was interested in competitive play. This game allows me the freedom to have fun, surprise players and win even with the weirdest decks. It is stylish, fast, well made and very much alive. And on top of all that, it's part of a bigger IP spanning other games, books, and shows. It's really, the best digital CCG, and it has seamless integration with its Android app (which works and looks good on smaller screens), which means I can play on PC or on my Phone.
The art is nice, the characters are nice, the atmosphere is nice... but the game is boring. The maps are simply too big and hard to navigate, the UI is very obtuse, and the game rules are.... well, fine. You spend most of the time moving units around an empty map, doing nothing in particular. When they do meet the enemy, it's nothing worth talking about.