Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft- Open beta!

Hearthstone is in open beta now! No more waiting for beta keys! Best of all, it's free!
It's available on Windows and OS X,  with iOS and Android support to come soon.

don't leave- your 1/1's need you. they look up to you

I've wanted to get into a game like Magic: The Gathering for awhile now, but the sheer investment that goes into making a competent deck was a little too much for me. Hearthstone was a great alternative.

Created by Blizzard and set in the Warcraft Universe, I was surprised at just how polished Hearthstone was even after watching countless streams and trailers. Every little detail makes the game feel like it has a real-world weight attached. The menu and user interface is very sleek with a simple design and satisfying sound effects. You can even mess around with the little doodads on the game boards. 

In a lot of ways, Hearthstone's UI reminded me of the buttons and sound effects of SpaceChem: you can tell a lot of effort went into creating them. The cards themselves look and feel like mythical stone slabs. When stronger minions are played, the card is slammed against the board causing all the other cards on the board to bounce up. An unseen crowd will even cheer and holler as they watch the events on the board unfold. Opening booster packs are just as exciting as opening them in real life- the way the packs explode open, leaving you to turn the cards over as fast or as slow as you want. I absolutely love the attention to detail.

no /dance command, 0/10 would play again

The game play of Hearthstone is remarkably simple, yet very deep. Two players face off in a 1v1 duel, each one duking it out to bring the other to their knees. Although there is a lot in the context of chance (this is a card game, after all), there are many things a player can do to bring the odds into their favor. A degree of mastery arises in bring able to forge a solid deck that focuses on several small strategies and synergies versus building a deck with a heavy, but risky, one-hit-KO play-style. Hearthstone's mana system is robust and ensures that heavy-hitters are summoned in the late game, giving players a chance to assess and react to the situation on the board. 

Balance is an essential keystone in any game experience. Here's a short post from Hearthstone's lead developer Eric Dodds, talking about Hearthstone's balance philosophy. Hearthstone's basic cards give you a fair number of options when dealing with various situations. The game is all about working with what you have and giving yourself as many options possible to be able to deal with cards or situations you may never have been in. After a few matches, you can go into your collection, select your deck, and tweak it to your liking. A player who pays more money for cards may have more options, but that doesn't necessarily mean he or she has more power than you. Rest assured, Hearthstone gives newcomers an ample amount of options during play.

Card games are card games and they'll always have that feeling of "pay-to-win" surrounding them. Hearthstone does a good job at minimizing that feeling by giving new players a solid foundation to explore and handle new and different situations. 

why do I play arena? to get more cards. why do I get more cards? to play in the arena, except it doesn't work that way because of the global selection of cards, which is nice

Arena mode in Hearthstone takes away a good chunk of the problem. As far as I know, everyone who pays an in-game fee of 140 gold to enter the arena is allowed to build a temporary deck from a global selection. The player is then pitted against others in the arena and depending on how well the player does after 10 games, rewards of varying degrees are given, with a guarantee of getting an Expert pack of cards. The deck is then deleted and the process can be repeated as long as the player has in-game gold. 

Players can pay real-world currency to buy "Expert packs", which contain 5 cards to add to your collection, or spend in-game gold. In-game gold is acquired simply through playing the game and completing objectives like "Win 5 games" or "Destroy 40 minions". These quests don't take long and new quests are added every day, giving players an incentive to play a handful of Hearthstone matches (which don't take long- about 10 - 15 minutes, 20 tops). 

At this time, there is no way to purchase in-game gold with real-world money. This means the only way to obtain gold to enter the arena or to buy packs is to keep playing the game.

The traditional microtransaction model works for Hearthstone: you can spend real-money to gain quicker access to more cards and more options, or you can play the game as you would and still gain access to the same cards and the same options.

Do I recommend this game? Yes, and it even runs very well on older laptops and machines.

Hearthstone is casual but complex with an active competitive scene. The game is engaging, polished,  and has an ethical business model. The soundtrack is catchy and everything is presented in great shape. Hearthstone is a great entry point into the digital trading card game genre.

Screenshots from here