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Review: Years late to the party, Heroes of the Storm is fun and worth playing

Have you played Heroes of the Storm?  It's Blizzard's brawler... MOBA... collectible... what genre is this game, even?  Well, it's fun, that's for sure.  I decided to test it out after binging on trailers  (don't do it, the rabbit hole is deep! but fun) and realizing that I have never played HotS, but I have played other Blizzard games.  So I figured I would give it a try.

I knew that I would be starting off at a huge disadvantage, what with being free to play and starting at level 1 but - it doesn't matter.  What matters is if you click (not even how fast) and if you are capable of teamwork.  I made some mistakes, and - people were nice about it.  I even accidentally joined an endgame match and ruined it for my team :( but they were all pretty chill about it.  HotS has a pretty generous questing/reward system that does not specify winning.  They just want you to play.  This is the regular matches, I assume the eSports section is totally different, but I'm not that stupid and I am not going in there!

I am currently trying to get enough gold and shards to buy the hero and skin that I really want.  I've been playing on my free starter hero (Muradin, from World of WarCraft) and he is really easy to play, but rewards playing well with awesome survivability.  I've only been playing casually for about a week, and I almost have enough to buy the hero I want - that's 7000 gold.  Like I said, HotS is really generous with rewards.  They want people to play and participate.  (If you're a Twitch user, you can also link your account and get even more rewards.  Yay!  Free stuff!)

The maps - arenas? - err, modes!  The modes are really well done.  They are different enough to be interesting every time you play, but similar enough that you can follow a basic strategy (smash forts! don't die!) until you understand the objective.  My favorite modes are Blackheart's Bay, because the VA for Blackheart is having such a blast with his lines, and Cursed Hollow, because listening to the Raven Lord and the Gravekeeper snipe at each other the whole time is really funny.  There are modes based on all Blizzard games, like Warhead Junction (StarCraft), Battlefield of Eternity (Diablo), Hanamura (Overwatch), and the all new Alterac Pass (World of WarCraft).

Are there things I don't like about it?  Of course!  But nothing worth mentioning.  There is one mode I hate, but I don't feel badly enough about it to drop out when it pops.  I think the objectives on some maps are really odd.  But nothing that interferes with playing, and nothing that made me stop and think I would rather be doing something else.  It's free.  It's fun.  It will hurt your clicking hand.

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