War for the Overworld - Heart of Gold Expansion DLC

A mostly enjoyable experience, however, it is extremely easy. You are not pressured at all, and it's almost impossible to fail any of the missions. It did kill a few hours and for this price point that's OK.

So on the whole I found this to be a *decent* DLC. It's neither essential nor a waste, and if you enjoy(ed) the base game and campaign then I would overall recommend this DLC, even at full price. The Good: The campaign pushes the limits of scripted progression within a single level, offering some genuinely original campaign content, and each of the 4 levels offered here are distinct not only from each other but from everything in the base campaign too - each level is also a decent length (well, depending on which achievements you are going for; 3rd can be quite short and 2nd can become almost too long) and overall they are longer than the base campaign missions, especially when achievement-hunting. I should also mention that Mendechaus makes a return with the same amazing voice-acting we have enjoyed since the days of Bullfrog, and the writing and dialogue present in these missions helps them to shine (special shout-out to Mandalf, the least manly character to ever have the word man in their name). Kasita's dungeon theme is gloriously decadent and her obsession with gold offers a different slant on managing your resources, however... The Less Good: The focus on gold-hoarding is completely undermined (not a pun) by the absurd abundance of the stuff in every campaign level. In the final (4th) level, I built an army of 12 lvl10 Sentinels + the Colossus with which I rampaged through the enemy stronghold with ease, spamming gild (a healing spell with zero mana cost - couldn't possibly be overpowered, could it?) 10 times a second, and still finished the mission with over 500k in my coffers. And it's like that for each of the other missions too. The campaign introduces you to Sentinels, which you can (and will) abuse the crap out of for every mission present. Their "prohibitive" wage and healed-by-gold mechanic are both total non-factors in levels that contain more gold than earth, along with a plethora of minor and major gold artifacts. The cheese-of-the-day I used to clear the 3rd level with laughable ease was actually quite different (I won't put it here just so that readers can experience the game and think for themselves, but it's nothing revolutionary) but I still felt like both the cheater and the cheated after finishing it - after all, surely I am supposed to maximise the tools given to me by the game? You should also take note that if you are solely a fan of the classic base-progression focus in campaigns, you may be disappointed here. Each level has a very definite "theme" that sets it quite far apart from the way you would normally play the game ( as much as I enjoyed the "stealth" focus of the 2nd level, I can see it genuinely annoying some players who will probably end up ignoring it and forfeiting the achievement) and I found myself caring much less about the layout and maintenance of my own dungeon whilst playing through these levels. Other Stuff: If you play other game modes, the balancing of the new powers in modes like skirmish is very on-the-edge. If you can absorb the gold costs then Sentinel+Gild becomes a ridiculously overpowered combination. The base heal spell itself is very powerful and reason enough to sell off all your traps when you make a final push for core, but gild takes it a step further. So long as you have money, your units can't die and the Sentinels themselves are incredibly powerful melee fighters that are immune to lava and cannot be imprisoned/converted, making sentinel-rush tactics far beyond those of beast-rush. I can't help but think that gild should have incurred a mana-cost AND a gold-cost in order to be even remotely balanced. The one-dimensional nature of Sentinels makes mixing them with other troop-types completely unnecessary and often even detrimental (they appear to not be healable by Cultists but ARE healable by Witch Doctors, though mixing them with other offensive fodder would force you to constantly switch between gild and heal whilst on the attack). In conclusion, this is more WFTO campaign - an undeniably good thing that adds new units, new spells, new rituals and new constructs. Out of the 3 main content DLC for the game, this is the only one with a focus on campaigning so if that's your favourite aspect of WFTO then this is going to be the first DLC you go for - just bear in mind that using massive amounts of gold to win may leave you feeling hollow (a metaphor of some kind, perhaps?).

Great DLC. It may seem short, with only 4 missions, but the puzzle-like nature of each level kept me interested. I thought the patrol mission, where you could beat the entire level without ever alerting the enemy, was a creative way of turning the usual goals on their head. It was a good place for the imps to shine. I thought it was very much worth it, and will enjoy replaying some of those levels with different tactics. Oh, the only downside was many things from the main campaign were disallowed, especially certain traps. Still great.

It's a little short and while the levels are fun, the achievements are just ... no. "Complete this level without getting spotted." "Do X within Y minutes." Takes the fun out of the game. I prefer to be methodical in my approach to evil. That said, it's worth the money if you like the base game.

A solid expansion. Would be nice if gold was easier to pick up, since one of the mission objectives requires this. It would also be nice if the gold water you see in the screen-shots actually moved, rather than being static as it is.

The campaign stopped for me at the second mission, when the artefacts i was supposed to recover refused to spawn. The pedestals are there, they can be claimed, Mendachaus says that i have to "click" on them (incidentally, even for an "ironic" game such blatant breaking of the fourth wall still looks janky), but i cannot do that because there`s nothing to click, and even trying to hitscan the area where the model of the artefact is supposed to be does nothing. Reloading resolved this once, but then it stopped working. Buyers beware.

It's a small expansion. 3 decent missions. 1 bad one. (the final one is a chore to finish... it isn't fun.) Even though its been over a year since its been released I encountered several bugs. (Problems with the voice overs and the last mission locked up during the winning cutscene... had to kill the game) If the fun level for War for the Overworld was 10 this would overal be a 4-5. If you liked War for the Overworld.... it might be worth it to pick this DLC up on sale. But otherwise, skip it.

Large varied levels that doesn't rush you like many of the base game levels. If you are a completionist you can easily spend 10+ hours on the new campaign.

Just finished my first playthrough of "Heart of Gold" (~5 hours). In my opinion the levels are more interesting than those of the main campaign. Each level features around five achievements promoting replay. I believe a completionist can get ten hours of gameplay from this DLC making it a great bargain. I'm looking forward to future campaigns.

Heart of gold is the campaign the original game should have had, albeit shorter. It lets you be an actual overlord, it lets you plot your attack and scheme, you're only forced into confrontations because of resources, not because of an arbitrary timer. Hats off to subterranean games, I hope you'll continue to make strides in this direction above all else.