Forum's dead yo'.
I finished HoS. Going to play Valkyria Chronicles next.
People should buy it, it's cheap and worth a lot more than the asking price. I do wish that the parts with Shani had lasted longer though. On that note, some people on the team obviously had a lot of fun with that "scene" on the boat.

Talk about risqué. I guess they took the criticism from the base game to heart. I also like how all the POI on the map are connected, and tell one story that the player has to figure out. At least there's a payoff for doing the bandit camps and treasure hunts now. The wedding quest is fantastic, and breaks up the utterly depressing and dreary tone that the rest of the game has.
Hearts of Stone just adds to my opinion that the game needs an Enhanced Edition, Not only to rebalance everything once the other expansion is complete. I'd like cutscenes at the end of the main game too about what happens to Shani and Olgierd. Hearts of Stone gave me that bittersweet feeling from TW1 and 2 that the rest of the TW3 simply didn't. The quality does dip a bit in some areas, and I still don't like the over-reliance on the Witcher sense mechanic, but I got
that feeling 100% throughout this expansion, just like in TW1 and TW2.
I wish the rest of the main game was of this standard. It's so good, I need more messed up Slavic folklore! I'm still disappointed about the Academy though. CDPR obviously put effort into designing it, but you're only there for 5 minutes. I think closing the Academy because of the war was a mistake, so many interesting quests could have taken place there. Also, Gaunter O'Dimm (I just realised that his initials are GOD

) is a better antagonist than the Wild Hunt, he even gets more screen time.
I think that TW4, or whatever the next Witcher related thing is that's being done by CDPR Krakow, should be a collection of short stories, similar to The Last Wish book. I think Hearts of Stone shows that CDPR is at their best when they're making smaller, more linear and "closed" stories.