I said what I said. For the work of one man SDV is phenomenal. After patch 1.6, it provides a consistently engaging storyline from start to "finish", up to 300 hours of gameplay if you're a diehard completionist. Of course things will feel repetitive at times, but it's a sandbox farming simulator--it comes with the territory. I could not recommend more highly.
HOMM5 has received mixed reviews, and with good reason--the gameplay is fairly exploitable, the main story is complex and difficult to follow at times, and the entire game subscribes to the white-male-dominated tropes which you see so often in the genre. All that said, though, I still love this game. It is not without its flaws, but I always find myself coming back to it. HOMM5 is the encapsulation of everything I love so much about this series--replayability, compatibility for solo- and multi-player games, and a detailed, almost 500-hour-long campaign story. Is the gameplay exploitable? Certainly. But it's really fun to exploit. In the end, it's a shame the game doesn't present more racial and gender diversity. But I still would highly recommend.
