GW:EN User reviews, feedback and opinions Thread

Hello,

With the increase of both positive and negative review threads, I think its about time we had a single thread to discuss GW:EN as a whole.

We welcome comments from both sides, but please remember flaming and trolling is not acceptable, so don't do it.

Also remember that flaming a flamer is also not smart or recommended, and only leads to more e-drama, so again don't do it.


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Finally all future discussions posted in new threads will most likely be shut down and linked to this thread, thread merging doesn't work, so that is not an option.

Thank you.

first to post, yay

all your base is belong to us


as for a review, thumps sorta up for gwen

the good: some beautiful scenery, some cool monsters (dinosaurs, lol), some nice standalone armor (sunglasses, lol), some awesome dungeons (snowmen, lol)

the bad: main storyline too short, nothing new for pvp

the ugly: (yall knew this was coming) RESKIN FTL

Ok first my opinions and reviews of the 3 campaigns first to follow up GWEN. Its easier to see that way.

1. Prophicies- 8.5, Pros - The lands were awesome, pre searing is a fad, freedom to move around, creation of guildwars of course and story wasnt half bad. Cons- Graphics were stale, Alot of clipping and glitches.

2. Factions- 7.5, Pros- Alot of the new armor was nice, elite dungeons added flare, new skills really complimented the new campaign, Rits are an excellent class when used properly. Cons- The city area was horrid, No actualy story line what so ever, poor or stuborn a.i.

3. Nightfall- 9.0, Pros- Dervish class rocks, beautiful lands, great storyline, some more new armors added, more rare items in it, added sigs and inscriptions, heros. Cons- Paragons fell short, some of the ancient and primevil armor was a lil too outrageous.

I know GWEN in an expansion, just thought i throw a review to help better sense what i was expecting, seeing how Nightfall the last campaign, was done rather well.

GWEN- 5.5, Pros- New Heros and their exciting armor, Decent Story, Beautiful explorable scenary, consumables, better a.i. with dual professions
Cons- Most armor is reskins and reskins with mix and not match, Short story, Ending was horrible, no content to better your character, stand alone pieces just dont cut it for the promised ways to customise, reskinned weapons, rarity of weapons now gone ex..reaver, dwarven axe, Dungeon chests drop rate low (ex one or two diamonds), extremely low replayability, no end game content, to expensive for what i paid for it.

Probaly some more pros and cons it i can think about it. GWEN is enjoyable, hands down to Anet on the scenary and hero department, had fun for a short time, I got revved up on all the excitement of an expansion and got something totally different than what i was expecting. Wish i was told directly that armor, weapons, monsters were reused. All in all i think that they messed up on this one really bad, i never had complained in the forums before until this was released.

More in the feedback/opinion category...

Monument of Devotion - I'd like to see the customization changed to account based, or something along the 'festival hat guy' line done.

Monument of Fellowship - I'd like to see a statue of my particular pet rather than a generic one of a wolf, bear and lynx regardless of what kind of pet it happens to be. I think it take just as much effort to level a standard pet up from level 5 to level 20 as it does to acquire one of the special three that get their own statues (spider/black moa/phoenix).

Monument of Valor - The list of accepted weapons needs to be expanded for sure. If limitations must be set at least they could span campaigns...ex. Prophesies - greens from Sorrow's Furnace; Factions - end game weapons and those greens dropped by Kanaxi and Urgoz; Nightfall - end game weapons, Tormented weapons and those greens dropped by Mallyx; EotN: end game weapons and Destroyer weapons.

I'd like to mention, as from the other threads, that GW:EN is a continuation of a problematic recent trend - that super powerful skills are gifted to players who simply grind by accepting "hunts" from NPCs near the Rez shrines and then clearing zones, or as an alternate in the case of factions who repeatedly do quests like Duel of the Houses.

This is not a good trend and breaks away from the original premise of Guild Wars, with promised "no grind" and the catchphrase "skill > time".

A paraphrasing from the rest of the threads is that Prophecies was obviously a successful paradigm as its own game and stood apart from the pack. Other MMOs which were designed and built with grind in mind do the job of fulfilling a grind-based-game do so better, so GW shifting its character development focus from "grind for vanities" to "grind for character development and further empowerment" is ill advised, as it is easily bested by its competition.

Besides, the idea of doing Duel of the Houses twelve thousand, five hundred times to max the title seems a bit.... ridiculous?

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

Good:
Good Soundtrack
Good artistic work, though the engine is getting a bit dated with the advent of DirectX 10 apps.
Some decent new "game within a game" pieces (Boxing, Norn Arena)


Bad:
Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, c, space, c space, grind, grind, c, space, grind
Beating the game and having half of the NPC's not give you the time of day
Heavy reuse of the same maps for different dungeons and missions.
Monuments seem half-baked... a good idea poorly executed.
A majority of their 40 so called "new" armors are bizarre combiniations of reskinned pieces from old sets.

Pros:
-A pretty nice soundtrack overall, annoying in Norn territory at times, though.
-Beautiful Environments.
-Interesting Mini-games.
-Dungeons are interesting at times.
-Cool heroes.
-Voice Acting for NPCs (not in cutscenes)

Cons:
-Armor, on a whole, is pretty undesirable.
-Combat music not only gets easily repetitive but can break the feel of an area.
-Story is short and more importantly unsatisfying.
-Dungeons seem to be reused at times.
-Offers VERY little in terms of PvP, not even any new elite skills.
-No new Guild Halls.
-Little incentive to grind the ranks.

I give it 3/5 stars.

Good

- Quests, not missions. How many times you were defeated at the end of a mission and had to start all over again? In GWEN, if your party is destroyed, you can get another chance after a resurrection at a shrine and complete an objective. It is casual player friendly, but experienced people found GWEN too easy.
- Dungeons. Multi-level dungeons that can be cleansed with any balanced team and have rewards at the end are fun.
- Mini-games. Pokemon on steroids, Norn Tournament, and Kilroy's Brawling Tournament are fun solo activities, but not attractive enough to keep participating in them. Give Gamer points for wins and implement pvp version if possible.
- Stand alone, any profession gear. Special gloves, blindfolds, ninja masks, and even glasses are very nice
- Hall of Monuments. It is good to have some benefits in GW2.
- Quests. Quests that reveal more lore details about the previous campaigns. You can earn green items via quests. Cross-campaign black moa chick quest.
- Beautiful scenery
- Nice music
- Gwen is a mesmer hero <3

Bad

- Monument of Fellowship. Heroes must have elite armor to be added to the Hall of Monuments (read grind)
- Monument of Honor. A map is fine for a Grandmaster Cartographer, but does not suit very well Protectors, Heroes, Gladiators, etc... FoW statue does not register for all people for some reason.
- Armor. Many armors look similar to existing armors (This is not a problem to me because I don't care about armor, but many people are upset about it). Since rank five is required to gain access to armor, many people find it quite frustrating because they have to grind for points (it is possible to reach rank five via quests and dungeons, but would take much longer).

Here's a thought!
I think EotN is ANet's deliberate way of killing the existing guild wars economy to ensure that players all purchase guild wars 2 upon realease!

They made everything available to everyone; with exception of some ultra rare unattainable minpets of course. There's no where to climb once you've reached the top. One thing's for shure all those faithfull players that spent gazillion of hours farming trading and collecting those rare goodys all lost intrest in the present game, and are now most awayting the release of guild wars 2.

It was a quick way to make a cheep buck at the hard core gamers expense. Its as clear as daylight that ANet is investing all its time and resources in the development of guild wars 2. The release of GW:EN was just a quick way of creating revenues.

Lets just hope they release it before all those boared gamers start buying gameconsoles.

That doesn't make sense, they said many times they plan to continue to support GW1 even after GW2 is released, at least for a time.

Don't try to create silly conspiracy theories without any solid proof to back you claims.

I'm just taking my time and enjoying GW:EN, although I see room for improvement (see most other threads about what needs to be improved).

My biggest complaint is the current responses from ANet PR to customer complaints/suggestions.

Second biggest complaint is HoM. Glad to see they made some improvements, but I'm disappointed in not being able to show my 27 month old Melandru Stalker, or any of my green weapons. I would also like to see a checklist for the title monument, so I can arrange titles the way I want.

Its not a claim but a thought. And no, I dont have any proof,; but I'm shure I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Last but not least support is a relative thing. Did you know Microsoft still supports Windows Me? I think the last update dates from 2001!

GWEN Pros: Awesome Enviroment no way to go around it its a job well done credit to anet for this!
Grind though they added grind titles they made it more fun then farming lightbringer or sunspear plus you get collectables for custom armor.
Custom armor awesome add every piece hasnt dissapointed me in anyway.
Quests seem more fun to do now rewards are worth doing them big pro!

Cons: Armor what a huge letdown by anet in each campaign i like 70% off all the armors available i havent seen even 1 eye of the north armor worth getting, reskinning is fine but do it with just a few armors not every possible armor there is Hero armor looks better then Player armor in gwen thats injury to insult how can you stab us twice with the same knife?
Asuras what i just hate the anoying shrimps wish i could kill them, no im not joking we should have the choice to engage one or even all 3 of the races in gwen. Being able to uncustomise weapons would be a nice change to implement.

Overall: i give GWEN a 3 out of 10 just because they produced a horrible job on the armors i thought it to be impossible to not like even one armor but these look ridiculous if gwen is supposed to keep us busy till gw 2 then make the armor actually worth getting.

Things they got more or less right:

The little details - love the hench soap-opera rather than just having the lined up like dummies by the exit. How in the pre-sear type landscapes there's red isis flowers dotted around. The frozen dragon in the lake. Things like that.

That some solo quests are mini-games in themselves.

The dungeons.

Riding siege devourers.

PvE skills.

The mini moa scavage hunt. Now this is the kind of stuff I would have liked to see more of. Big task, perhaps. But most of it rather fun an adorable minipet as a reward.

Complaint list:

No extra storage tab. Yet GWEN is one with the heaviest storage needs. All the extra stuff to lug around. The books, the quest items, the new collectables and consumables, etc. etc.

Thunderfist Brassknuckles - those gold, value 0, ones you win in Kilroy's brawl solo quest/mini game thing. Having a req of 9 dagger mastery.
Make them customized to the character, but for heavens sake make them useable for the one that wins them if they want to go on with the tournament. No matter what profession they have and perhaps more so, or whether or not they own factions.
At the very least give them a merch value so that they are not just a piece of worthless junk.

Grindwars. It's all getting a bit ridiculous now.

The hall of monuments. You've gone so wrong with this one.
It should have been a place to display your personal achievments.
I have no issue with that only certain things carry through to GW2. But people should be able to display what they consider as their personal achievements, whatever they may be. Not just Anet approved ones.
The melandrus stalker animal companion tamed in pre-sear on the first day playing guild wars and have been with you ever since.
The first green weapon dropped that has been kept for sentimental reasons. Or that was a gift from someone.
A non-max title that wasn't earned by grinding and thus might be more of an achievement than a max-rank one that only means you've had X hour of free time to grind, grind, grind, and grind some more. etc. etc.

** Having to repost, did not realize I posted in wrong area, new to forums. Accept my apoligies please. **

I have been reading post in all areas of EotN. I have to admit, I am somehwat taken by surprise of all the complaints.

This is what I mean:

Before the game was released, we heard about how harder it would be(hence having to be LvL 20's). We were told there would be better top end items. I myself have realized, some of these items you really really have to work for and save materials just for the chance to own them. EotN is a different flavor, no friggin doubt. Would I change anything? Be lying if I said no. I wish same things were less demanding to get, example the Chaos Gloves, I am working so hard for. Those things are going to cost me in the neighborhood of 6 to 700k to own. Am I upset, disappointed, yes, but only because I cant have them right this minute.

Seems in EotN to me, you want something, you better get busy and do something about it. EotN has turned into a job. The harder you work at it the more you save, the better stuff you get. I myself dont concern myself with not being able to see all the armor crafters. I am a warrior class, and most times, armor is not that great anyway, but some are. I was hoping armror would be better, but at least they are different then the other same ol' boring armor.

Whole idea of EotN is keep us busy until GW-2 comes out. Which brings me to another point. Stop and think about what you really are doing in EotN. Who does it really benifit everything you do anyways? YOU? Ummm...yes and no. You are setting up for your Chars that will be created under GW-2 and they will benifit from your hard work, work in progress if you will. For me that changes the outlook. Fine, somethings may be a pain, expensives, "not what I expected", and etc. But down the road, what I do, will finally pay off.

All three campaigns have there own challenges, we have all over-come them. EotN, isnt by far, any different then the other campaigns. Anet seems to be asking us in playing EotN, "lets see just how far you will go to obtain something you want, what will you do for it, because we are not handing anything out this time. You are going to really have to work for it". I have noticed for myself I spend alot more time in EotN, then the other campaigns, "grinding" away at the titles.

I am sure Anet, as always, will make needed changes over time.

In MY OWN OPINION: I love the game, keeps me busy and always have something to do, new goals, accomplishments and so on so on. I would change somethings as stated, but overall, I think the $40.00 I spent, is very much worth it. But then again, I dont mind having to do what it takes to get something I want, and am willing to work for it, even if it is just say, "I did it". Again, this is just my opinion and I am not saying people are wrong or right. I myself in general, do not have major gripes about the expansion as a whole. In the meantime, will enjoy what is in front of me, and keep busy, alot to get done before GW-2 is released.

The good:

-Soundtrack. Jeremy Soule FTW.
-The scenery. It is very pretty.
-The new heros are cool.
That's about it :/

The Bad:

-Length. It was so very short. Yes, I know the fanboy response of "it's an expansion, not a chapter". But....it was a $40 expansion. Almost costing as much as a chapter, one would expect (at least I was) much more quality content than what we got. :/
-Grind. The grind introduced to make the very short expansion seem longer was a cheesy way to go about doing things.
-Reskins, reskins, everywhere. The mobs (most of them) are reskins. The armor sets are reskins. The end-game rewards?....yup, reskins.
-The loot and drop rates are deplorable, amplified by the fact that lockpicks are required in Normal Mode.
-The lack of Hard Mode.
-The Hall of Disappointments.


Overall, I am let down with it. It makes me sad to say that, as I never thought I would. There was so much less quality content than I expected. People say "it's an expansion, of course there'll be less content than a full chapter", and if it were say....a $20 expansion, I might agree with them. EotN to me, feels rushed, or unfinished. Slapped together in a hurry, maybe. It could have been so much more than it is...

Quote:

I call it the Hall of Unfulfillment.

Some threads have been erased where many have commented on the good and bad of EotN. I can't remember what I said so it'll be brief.

Good:
Scenery and non-subscription play.

Bad:
Drops. Lockpicks and locked chests.

Still have the issues of preview doings not reflected in official release. Hero/Dungeon books have what reason for not being present in the preview? Reward and quests could not have been completed during preview anyway so there wasn't a reason to not have it then. After release it's not reflected in the books. To repeat it just because it's repeatable doesn't give me back my 5 hours or so of time spent doing them during preview. So far not doing anything about it tells me it was time wasted. Just like grinding and farming is to me, time wasted.

The Hall of Monuments and all its various problems.
I think non-maxed titles should be included but obviously only hardcore grinders should be considered. Why bother retaining loyal fans who were told grinding isn't necessary and titles did diddly squat?
Why not have mixed armor pieces? Why can't it just be max armor instead of 15k sets? Does this not betray those who were told collector armor is just as good as 15k armor?
For weapons, it'll be better if any max damage weapon could be put in. I thought you won't be able to get the exact skin in GW2 anyway so why not just allow anything to be put in? Does this not betray those who were told blue/purple/crafted/collector weapons are just as good as vain, overpriced weapons? Just have it where GW1 Axe = GW2 Axe.

Title grind for crafters. To have the option of using certain npcs I have to have some kind of rank? I'd rather they be endgame crafters than rank based crafters.

The trend that is continuing with GW is pandering to the grinders/farmers. If all the crap in HoM gives you an iris flower in GW2 it'll be grand. If it leads rank based crafters like in EotN it's total RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing bullshit.

P.S. Those are rhetorical questions.

Pros:
Voltaic spear and a couple other nice weapons skins
Dungeons
Cons:
Everything else

For one wtf is up with heros gettin such kick ass armor and then leaving us human players with some ugly reskinned crap. I mean come on GW, heros are not the ones buying your products.

Another thing is that some nice new pets were added, but there is no place to store your old trusty companions. I mean it would not be that hard for GW to just make a pet storage guy in a GH or HoM and it would save many players the heartbreak of parting with a old trusty sidekick to get a new one.

Those are just a few of the many complaints that I have with GWEN, but im tired of typeing so this will have to do.

I'll start with what I liked about GW:EN

Dungeons
These are a good fun and diverse enough to offer interest of all play levels, they make a fine replacement for the "elite missions" found in other games.

Atmosphere
Quests were a lot of fun and riddled with humour and surprises. The environment is definitely one of the prettiest anet has provided us.

Enemies
Players have been crying out for multiclass enemies for some time now and they did a good job of bringing foes with good skillbars for us to kill.

Henchmen
We've finally got henchmen that are don't have skillbars chosen via a dartboard... If only we could take them back into other games.


Now for the bad bits:

The Hall of Monuments
A large part disappointment around the HoM can be attributed to the months of hype that anet drummed up about it. The truth is that what they delivered was a spectacular failure, right down to the basic design. How could they honestly not imagine that locking out players with multiple characters would be a good decision is beyond me.

Unfinished Product
There is the glaring omission of hardmode from what they gave us. If you're going to deliver something, make sure all the essential features are there. After defeating the other campaigns in HM, playing in NM reeks of ho hum.

Title Based Access to Content
In the other GW games, if you wanted to access elite armours you were able to choose how you obtained the required resources, whether by farming, running, trading or speculating. In GW:EN, these choices are taken away from you. To access weaponsmiths and crafters, you must farm for hours in order to obtain the requisite faction title before can craft your armour. Removing choice from players is never a good thing.

Overpowered Title Based Skills
Towards the end of Factions, they released the Sunspear and Kurzik luxon skills which introduced significant imbalances into the PvE environment and gave distinct gaming advantages to grinders over casual players. GW:EN took this concept and increased it tenfold. Now the PvE environment is rife with unbalanced skills wielded by grinding players forcing casual players to either start grinding themselves or play at a massive disadvantage. These skills sound the death knell for the original guiding principle of rewarding skill instead of time - the principle that made GW a unique game in the first place.


Overall Score 4/10. I'd say skip it, but unless you want to play at a disadvantage to the other players who are brining the overpowered PvE skills back into the other games, you don't really have a choice.

(By comparison: Prophesies 9/10; Factions 7/10; Nightfall 7/10)

This is my comment after finishing GWEN just a moment ago.

In contrary to other player's point of view, i think the story of GWEN draws you into the world of GW more than other episodes of the series. I mean for me, there are more twists added to the storyline. As you know, each faction (charr, asura and norn) got its own storyline in GWEN. Each storyline outlines the differences of the culture of a race from another race well. For example, norn relies on individual ability more than team effort, asuran regards themselves highly in comparison to other races of tyria, charr's society are more 'orc-like' imo. Although i admits that i am quite disappointed with the storyline of Gwen, i mean, gwen has the most attention among the other characters in the universe of gw and i think anet can do better in tying up the loose end in Gwen's part of the story. Dungeons deserve another applause. Unlike previous episodes of GW, the missions in GWEN are triggered by different methods. Dungeons are featured with 5 classes of difficulty. Each are meant for different crowd of players so that both casual and hardcore can spend and enjoy their time. The music in GW improves a lot since GW:P as well as the scenery in game. The cinematics in GW are wonderful to behold due to its graphics. It is a farcry in comparison to GW:F.

I admit that i felt cheated after being told GWEN will be presented in three acts which gives a false impression that each act will be long-lasting individually. However, it turns up that the first and last act only lasts for a short while. The mobs are another letdown, i mean, we paid our money for a bunch of reskin monsters and weapons??!!!! wtf is going on with anet??!!! Although destroyers look fascinating, other creatures (including pets) are either taken from other campaign directly or with their colour being modified.

In addition, HoM needs improvements. Each monument only allows a total display of five titles ONLY!! I felt cheated because i had earned myself a few titles after spending tons of times in game and now i am being informed that i am not allowed to display all my titles in HoM? Since we cannot transfer our characters to GW2, i think we are well deserved to pass all of our achievements to GW2 as we spends a lot of times in order to get those titles.

In short, i think that GW:EN is a good expansion. However, i felt that anet finishes it quite harshly. There are more negatives than positives in GW:EN. I am quite disappointed as this is the finale of GW1 and yet anet ends it badly.

Overall i give a score of 7/10 for the improvement in game mechanics and storyline despite of the fact that the ending can be improved further.

I Love the dungeons

I dont use any of those grind skill regulair skills are much better

Bit of a short story line especially the vanguard would love to kill some more charr

But u can repeat those mission and thats nice

Lots of nice new explorable areas

My Black Dyed Norn longbow rocks !

It doesnt give as much content as the stand alone campains

But i still find it enough for a expension

I like the heros u get in Gwen especially hayda and livia

I Also love to hunt down big strong dinosaurs

My overal rating for Gwen : 7/10

Prophecies 9/10 Factions 7/10 Nightfall 8/10

Ok I have been a huge fan of Guildwars and have always defended it over WOW even when I have had server problems which were rare, but frustrating, but I have just got to put my two cents in here.

Eotn Pros:
Nice scenery and some great fire back drops.
Good to see real benefits in accumlating points for titles.
Smooth looking skins for the weapons.
A good bunch of hero's to choose from.

Eotn Cons:
POLYMOCK aka Poppycock ............ what a have...... If I wanted to play pokemon then I would !
Title based skills, and oh so many of them........ !
No new Elites, not even one.
Quests and missions that are profession based .... Like running drunk .... Ever seen a Necro skill to make you run fast, and Nice getting a lovely pair of knuckle dusters, pity I not an assassin so I dont have the pre-requisites !
Quests, Mission have completely lost the feel of previous installments ..... whats with the big chest at the end .... yippie more gold items that are useless except for trading.
Quests and Missions that have XP and Gold rewards are just a waste of time this far on in the game .... give us title points, give us skills .....
Dungeons, are nice but can I get a donation for my power bill as I have to leave the PC running all day now. If I dont complete them I have hide in the corner of a dungeon, until I can continue.
Hall of Monuments, well hey nice idea, pity it wasnt account based .....
Drops .... not very exciting are they

Eotn Summary:
What a let down, I really hope this is not a glimpse of things to come in GW2 cos I sorry but it just not gonna keep this player interested. Keep mini games to handhelds and leave the killing to us. We are here to save the world not to play patty-cake with oversized gremlins !

This is probably going to be a bit reposty from my "new players perspective" post but so far so good. I guess my view might be squed by my only playing for about a month now, but i'm enjoying GW:EN.

Length:
i can see how some people would find the game "short" if they were only counting the storyline. Sure, It's short, requires full runs of what 3-4 of the dungeons to complete (Fells and Orr don't count you only do the top floor for those and you can run them) But doing every quest and as a result every dungeon, that'll take time.

Variety:
Maybe it's because i only own Prophecies and GW:EN but i view GW:EN as a good thing because other than HM my options for lvl 20 content is basicly South Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire Island. I'm sorry but i enjoy hunting in the Asura and Charr lands as a bit of variety from my alternatives to hunting in the Snowdrifts and Firewrecked landscapes of my Prophecy alternative.
Also the dungeon monster variety is nice, i have alternatives to the "stone summit and ice monsters" and "undead and lava monsters" of prophecies. Maybe with the other 2 campaigns end areas there isn't any "ooo get to fight THESE" or maybe being used to hard mode itself takes the "ooo shiny" out of the variety i see.

Difficulty:
I can handle or avoid a decent amount of it, some places are rough if you're not careful or uberspecced. And some places i see as being nastier is you ARE Uberspecced (such as the monkey packs in Asura areas. I can see better now with another couple weeks exp why people are chirping for Hard Mode, since some of this stuff COULD be harder, particularly the Norn Area though HM Jotun packs i find a bit distressing to think about.

Story:
Meh, typical end of the world stuff, but then that seems fairly par for the coursein any MMO if there is story at all. HOWEVER i find even my "trivial" heroes to have a bit of personality particulalry with their "story quests" to flesh them out a bit. Maybe Nightfall does this too, i don't know, but it's more than alot of the Henches. And even the henches feel a bit more alive with them in their little clics in the different outposts. Outside GW:EN there are only a few key quests that make them feel alive like that. Also i find the cultural factor of the quests to be interesting.

The "Grind":
Ok i get a bit annoyed on this one because i feel like you guys don't know what a grind IS, and what a REQUIRED grind is. Any exWoW players that remember the attunement reqs for Tempest Keep before they took that out? Or the betrayal questline in EQ2? I still shudder at the number of Gnoll i had to annilate on my Lizard to change sides, much less the Month(s) of grinding Molten Hell it took to clear it and have your guild geared enough to down Vael and Razorgore in WoW. So people that do the "grind" have PvE skills that work a little better. That's a HELL of alot better than having attunement and endgame dungeon gear checks so intensive that 90% of the population doesn't see half half the endgame content. (ok i need to stop the WoW hating, but seriously THAT stuff is grind, don't even start on this cake walk)

Mini-games:
Like them or hate them we HAVE them now. nothing says you have to play Polymock but have a minigame you can play and if you want a minigame to break things up or kill a bit of time it works. Norn fighting or Dwarven boxing, both nice solo fighting and Norn Fighting is a nice place to test my builds for general strength since since the ring likes to throw all kinds of specs at you.
Also i personally consider riding the Siege Devourer around the Charr lands it's own minigame, and i find it quiet fun.

Hall of Monuments:
I'm new, i just view it as my "get out there and DO stuff" motivation. if i already had tons of stuff accomplished yeah i might have some of the complaints that others have. I can see how wanting to organize or have your green weapons displayed might be of interest. Also i personally boggle a bit at it not being account based just do to the sheer logistic strain of it being charactor based when GW2 rolls around, i'm betting when they get around to thinking about that it'll be account based. And again since i don't HAVE alot to put in it yet i really don't care, i was thrilled just to finish the Prophecies campaign this past week and put my Lich statue in as my first trophy.

Reskins:
Ok, i can understand people fussing about reskins but have you PLAYED other MMOs. just about anything you can get without selling your soul to a heavy raiding guild is "same old same old." Any WoW Burning Crusade players that can witness for the amount of mob reskin factor? or the item reskin factor, sure there ARE some new things, but alot of those are focused in endgame raids that you will probably never see without raiding 20+ hours a week.
There IS some new stuff such as Destroyer weapons and Asura weapons, plus a few other things, and the armors might be a mixed/reskinnish but they still look fairly nice and i'll probably be targetting one of them for my first armor addition to the HoM. Also the "generic" armor items aren't reskin and some of them look pretty cool. You know your WHR Necro hairstyle needs the Asura glasses.

I'm not saying GW:EN is perfect, sure if i'd been playing longer some of the issues people present would effect me. Would i want GW:EN armor if i was already in Primevil or Obsidian, probably not. Would i be crabbing about needing to "grind" after already putting in my time and energy grinding the Gold needed to raise my titles and get things like my Luxon/Kurzic rank and Sunspear/Lightbringer titles, probably. But as it stands I'm new, i'm having fun, and i'm still at the bottom looking up and GW:EN presents me lots of intersting/fun ways to ascend the heights of title and skill. (I SWEAR i'm going to figure out how ot solo that Siege Devourer on my own, though i'm sure there is a "how to" post on it somewhere)

Maybe GW:EN falls short for the vetern player who has been everywhere and done it all. But for a younger player like myself it's full of "ooo shiny" and the thrill of exploration and battle against new things. Also maybe the access to things from multiple campaigns helps generate interest in the campaigns i don't have yet. Especially Nighfall as Heroes are amazingly useful to me and Kahmu has been generating a bit of interest in the Dervish class. Not to mention all the Nightfall skills i'm seeing thrown around i don't have access to

Gwen's story quests back in Ascalon are made of win too. I Can't wait for the mission pack to come out so i can fill in the rest. Anyway off to finish my Titan quests in Prophecies and have Pyre help me kill his former "gods" he hates so much. Good hunting all.

I'm a bit diappointed at the amount of overland explorable territory, and the corresponding lack of a new cartography title. The scenery is gorgeous, the new heroes are useful (they'd be even moreso if I could use seven of them...) and I like the dungeons and minigames.

Lots of people complain about grind, but for my part I just play the game and if I happen to accumulate a fair amount of reputation (I always take bounties when I enter a new area) that's fine. Playing that way, rather than being compelled to "grind grind grind" I've had no problem getting what I want out of the game so far, so I don't see a problem with that component of the design.

I look forward to hard mode, and anything else Anet cares to add. I do hope that at some point the solo players will see a bit more love on the hard mode front, I only have a few other friends who play this game and they're frequently not on when I am or not doing what I'm doing, so ultimately my enjoyment of the game hinges on heroes and henchmen being usable. It's not a big issue in the normal game, but in the elite missions and in hard mode it's a real problem.

I may be looking at this post later for revision, because I can't believe ANet would leave EotN as it is. That would be a con to trump all.

Pros:

-Soundtrack. I usually listen to Japanese, techno, or dance, but for going into the North, I let the background music play, and I must say that I'm impressed. The transition from traveling to battle and back isn't perfect, but the music still sets a great mood for any point in the game. Plus, bringing back music from Tyria was a nice blast from the past.
-Length. I saw someone post here about it being too short, but I know that it's an expansion. However, when I look at it again, I realize that the length is just right, because players that just want to get through the main storyline can buzz through it pretty quickly. Other players that want to enjoy their surroundings can take up one of the many repeatable quests that are available to them.
-Monster skills. It was nice to see different species in EotN use various Monster-only skills. This kept a person from playing the same build over and over, and caused me to shift my plans every now and then to fit the environment. I also liked how you took creatures from other parts in the game, like the Stone Summit, and changed around a few of their skill bars, so I wasn't totally whooping them when I got to 'em.
-Faction bonuses. I liked how my increasing rank in a faction boosted my character's and heroes' stats.
-Flexible storyline. At the beginning, when I was asked by Gwen, Vekk, and Odgen which faction I would gain support from first, I was somewhat overcome by the decision, because I never really got this choice before. Factions somewhat had it in picking Kurzick or Luxon, and Nightfall somewhat had it with picking different heroes to follow. EotN hit it right on with how I wanted to be able to do things: any order.
-Single piece, non-set armor. The Dwarven, or Deldrimor, armor is not included. The addition of items like spectacles or magma gauntlets was an amazing idea, and is along the lines of what I've been waiting for for a long time. Now we just need to get Festival Hats for 20s to have the same kind of stats, and you'll hold my good favor as long as you hold festivals.
-Henchmen. God bless, ANet. You gave them super skill bars this time.
-Heroes. I'm jealous that they seem to have x100 better armor than the players got, but I've read arguments on it and understand why it is so, so I shan't complain on that. That aside, I enjoyed getting a new hero for every profession. I actually haven't gotten two of them just, just for my lack of use with those professions as hero (Assassin and Paragon). Each of them seems to have a pretty good story to them, and it's nice to see them react to each other as you move through the campaign and cinematics.

Cons:

-Armor sets. Re-hashed, re-skinned, whatever they may be, they don't cut it for me. I was glad to see the Norn armor sets only, because they appeared to be the only fresh sets in GW. The Woads were also nice. Every other set, however, fell to the trash bins, because it's been done before, and most often at better quality, or better availability.
-Silver Eagle Armor Set. Not fair. Not even close. I know the story about it being a leftover concept and it being introduced into the game because you didn't want an idea wasted. I call "favoritism", and before you say it isn't, I declare that it is, because someone somewhere had more ideas to throw around for Warriors and obviously had more creative powers going to the Warrior class. An easy remedy would be to produce armor sets of equal status, not re-skinned either. Silver Eagle looks original to me for the most part, so I would expect the same from other armors.
-Bounties in dungeons. Too many bonuses for Deldrimor points and not enough bonuses for other factions. In fact, I think every dungeon awards you Delver points instead of for the faction that would be more associated with that dungeon. Plus, it seems that player bonuses that players get from the titles don't work in the dungeons. A dungeon in the Far Shiverpeaks should benefit from a high Norn title and should award Norn points for the bounty. There are only so many places to fight Destroyers, and if the dungeon doesn't have any, then I see no use for the title, nor do I see why I should be earning points for said title.
-Not enough ways to earn faction. Right now, I see myself having three options: farm areas for points, do quests, or do dungeons. Dungeons give a great bounty the first time, but the reductions afterwards make me shy away from doing it multiple times. See above section on bounties on more of why I don't do dungeons. Next, there's quests, but those don't seem like they'd award a very great amount of points for the time they take. Ones with quests I might do, but just like the dungeons, there lacks reason for me to do them again. Lastly, I can vanquish an area for mass points, but that takes a long time, and getting +2 or +3 to my bounties is never a guarantee, which makes this method fluctuate for value. I also don't find great desire in cleaning up an area just to clean it up. In a dungeon or quest, at least I have some goal, or some end. A fix would be to make increases in points less random, or to add some other repeatable way of earning faction.
-Experience awards. Why 15k every time? Do I really need that many skill points? There are two things I see skill points going to: earning skills and buying consumables. Once I get enough experience points for enough SoCs to get all of the elites, I don't need skill points for skills, because I can just buy tomes. Also, consumables are not necessary for any job, so I don't have a use for those. I feel like every time I complete a major quest, I'm getting such an insane abundance of experience points, and my faction rewards are so shortchanged.
-Farming. Goes hand in hand with earning faction points. See above.

Hopes:
-Hard Mode. I personally liked the way I farmed SS and LB points. Probably won't show up again, but with Hard Mode, I expect ways of earning many more points for faction for what it's worth.
-New armors. Not as a bonus pack either. See Silver Eagle Warrior Armor above for more.
-New ways to earn faction. Something. Anything. Anything that doesn't involve carpal tunnel.
1. Hit C + Space.
2. Repeat.
3. Repeat. A lot.
Not good!

Overall:
-Score: 6/10. It almost feels like you took a used, run-down car, threw confetti and streamers on it, and hoped I wouldn't notice. Get down deep and fix the problems that really mean something, and my perception of EotN would increase.

Pros:
1. Much improved graphics
2. Little or no failure in missions or dungeons
3. Big, multi-level dungeons
4. Mini-games
5. Common gloves, head pieces for all professions


Cons:
1. Armor reskins
2. HoM
3. Many many many reused & recyled & reskinned foes, music, dungeon design
4. Grindin for titles
5. No new GHs
6. No new random/team arena maps
7. No new pvp elite skills
8. Main storyline seems rushed

Overall
A big disappointment for 40 bucks. With all the things that were lacking in this expansion, I should at least get tons of new pve experience, but instead I saw more of the same stuff than the new stuff. The main storyline is too short, rushed, some dungeon designs are reused even up to 4-5 times, practically all armors have been reskinned, majority of foes, music are recycled, reused, HoM is useless to store hard-earned pvp titles(hero, champion, gladiator).