After having already played Icewind Dale II, this game was pretty much what I expected. It was fun, not to an addictive degree, but enjoyable. The gameplay is linear, with one quest leading directly to the next, but heck, most games are that way, and the complexity and room for creativity in D&D battles keeps things interesting. I didn't give 5 stars because I was disappointed that the game ended with characters at only level 18 or so. That means high-level abilities are completely off the table, and level 8/9 wizard spells are basically off the table. I would have preferred a longer game. I can easily think of some simple ways the game could have been made much longer without much more development time/budget. Also, I would have preferred higher difficulty. I played on Hard and found that to be only moderately difficult. I played the expansion (Heart of Winter) on Insane difficulty, and that wasn't terribly challenging, either, even though I started with new characters instead of carrying over my characters and all their gear. I'm fairly well-versed in D&D gameplay, but there should be an option for an even higher difficulty level. Still, the game was fun, and I also liked the bonus dungeon in Heart of Winter. That dungeon seemed bland at first, but having gone into it at the very beginning of the expansion, it got very challenging at times, and knowing that the only way out is to progress deeper into it made things very interesting. The final battle in the expansion was too easy, though, even on Insane difficulty. Also, like the main game, it ended too soon, with characters around level 18. I had bought tons of spells that I never even got to use. Still well worth the sale price, and surely worth the normal price if you have the $.
