Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm – worth the wait?

After a lengthy wait, Starcraft II’s colossal-sized expansion is finally here, but does the add-on live up to the hype created since its announcement?

The PC-exclusive game currently has a Metascore of 84, and a 84.55 Gamerankings percentage.

Scores are just one thing though, and what we really want to know is what the critics are saying about Blizzard’s new expansion.

Gamespot: 9.1/10

Starcraft’s personality goes a long way towards rendering its minor shortcomings obsolete. The game has so much life in it – whether in the great, narrative-driven single-player campaign or the multitude of multiplayer options – you won’t grow tired of it anytime soon.

CV G: 8.4/10

“For non-hardcore players, it may seem like little has changed; there are a couple of new units for each side, a better training mode for the multiplayer, AI allies and a few tweaks to the interface and social functions that should have been in the original game. But for the hardcore, the seemingly insignificant additions (such as extra units) have completely revised the structure of how Starcraft 2 is played.”

Giant Bomb: 5/5

“For those of us who still deeply love this specific style of real-time strategy and want more of it, this is a must-have add-on.”

Gametrailers: 8.5/10

“Series savants won’t be disappointed by the game’s catalog of well-constructed missions and stellar multiplayer experience, but players may still find themselves hoping for some sort of wild mutation from the franchise’s established norms.”

GamesRadar: 4.5/5

“Heart of the Swarm transforms the StarCraft II landscape in all the right ways–enough to surprise and excite you, while still being amiably familiar at its core. As with its predecessors, it offers fast-paced real-time strategy with a great amount of accessibility and no skill ceiling in sight.”

Blistered Thu mbs: 10/10

“Starcraft II and Heart of the Swarm continue the strong traditions that made the series great and takes them higher and farther than we ever thought possible. With a renewed eye turned to player-created content and expanded mechanics, Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is an amazing expansion to an already genre-defining game.”

Kotaku: “yes”

“Heart of the Swarm brings with it more units, more buildings, and some heavy-duty tweaks—siege tanks don’t need research for siege mode anymore!—that will change the multiplayer game for years to come. And in another 15 years, I imagine we’ll all still be playing it.”

Attack of the Fanboy: – “loved”

“The single player campaign is good, and polished to near perfection. It’s not quite as robust as Wings of Liberty, but follows the same paths and capitalizes in all of the key areas that matter. Multiplayer has the same if not more polish than the single player, and that’s a good thing because players should be spending most of their time there anyway. ”