Rating: 
Summary: Really enhances Icewind Dale! Well worth picking up!
Review: Most expansion sets only give you new characters and some new maps, but Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter actually IMPROVES the gameplay system and interface of Icewind Dale!How so? Inventory screens are now streamlined and allow you to carry more stuff by giving you scroll and gem bags to keep non-essential items out of your main inventory. The interface is great in that you can maximize your viewing screen by using BGII-style hot keys to drop away unnecessary status panels. More areas have been added as well as some tweaking of the AD&D rules and some more spells! If you want to max out your party's experience, you can configure the mode that allows you to score max experience at the expense of dealing with some really tough enemy AI. What's cool is numerous ways you can start a game in the Heart of Winter universe. Installing the add on, you can enhance your current in-progress Icewind Dale game that you're still playing and immediately jump to HOW at the conclusion. Doing this gives you the benefits of the HOW enhancements while still playing the first game. You can opt to import your previous party ifyou've already beaten IWD and start right at the HOW story, or you can use your existing game and access HOW through the locked door in Kuldehar. Pretty cool, but in any event you'll need the first IWD game to use this! Not a standalone product! Great game and well worth picking up. I happen to think IWD was the better of the BG series of games thanks to the heavy combat and minimal exploration. HOW will keep you busy until IWD II comes out very soon!
Rating: 
Summary: Not Really The Game I Wanted
Review: Sometimes you get what you hope for... And sometimes you don't. This add-on to Icewind Dale from Interplay is simply too little, too late. The story line is extremely short. As barbarians mass to attack the tiny town of Lonelywood our heroes are approached by a barbarian shaman to intervene somehow and save both sides from disaster. A short investigation in Lonelywood and a meeting with the barbarian chief leave you basically clueless and in severe disfavor. The rest of the story is primarily composed of hacking your way across one desolate scene or another in your effort to resolve the mystery. Which, after several not quite titanic battles, you finally do. All in all, about 8 hours of gameplay at the most. Perhaps the best parts of the add-in are the improvements it makes to Icewind Dale overall. The 800x600 resolution and improved 3D acceleration are beneficial. There are 59 new spells to master, and a bunch of new items. Best of all, you can take your characters up to the 20th level! The short storyline I found singularly dissatisfying. Not so much due to weakness, but due to the fact that there was material in it for a full sized game with, perhaps, a more uplifting ending. For, to tell the truth, the villain of the piece is by far the most interesting character. It was with some regret that I won the final battle. .... If you haven't played Icewind Dale, I suggest waiting to see what kind of combination deal Interplay Offers. If you have already played the original game and don't want to replay it, then you may find Heart of Winter a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, but...
Review: The expansion was really fun, Icewind dale was great, Heart of winter was interesting, EXCEPT that it was incredibly short. They set the experience caps to level 30, and playing on hard mode I took my level 11s and 12s (imported) to level 16-17... I beat the game in 2 hours. It would take AGES to get to 30. 5000000+ exp. It's good, But extremely short. If you want something more satisfing, Baldur's gate 2 is pretty good. Pretty long.
Rating: 
Summary: Good game, but yes, a little too short.
Review: This is a great add-on to a great game, but way too short. One good thing though, is that if you set the difficulty to insane, monsters do double damage and give double experience. However, even with this feature, it is hard to reach level 30, as they SAY you can. I played through the entire game, including the expansion and then most of the original game again, all on insane mode, but still my highest character is level 25. Still, the new additions are incredible. The new abilities are cool (I play a paladin) and the monsters are cool too. Some of the old monsters got new looks, and then there are some new ones. Yes there is a dragon, and it is really cool. There are a lot more side quests in the expansion too, even better ones than the original game. There is one really neat feature of the original game that is really handy if you have the expansion. Since you create all the characters in your party, you can export chracters and then import them into other games. This helps for getting experience. Example: I import my level 19 paladin into an old saved game. There he meets an evil snake goddess, and kills her and her snake minions for a total of 108800 experience or so. Poof, he levels up. Repeat 20 times. With this feature you can essentially play through the game as many times as you want. All in all, a great game for any RPG fan, especially if you liked Baldur's Gate. THIS GAME IS MUCH BETTER THAN DIABLO 2. Get this game. -CoWgOd
Rating: 
Summary: Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter
Review: This was a hugely disappointing game. Extremely linear, and ridiculously short. Not, repeat, not worth the money! If you've played Baldurs Gate II, basically this was the equivalent of a single quest. If you haven't played Baldurs Gate II, buy that game instead. You definitely won't be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't live up to the standard of the original or BG2.
Review: This was one of the more expensive expansion packs I've ever seen, but sadly, it was also one of the shortest. Though the story of the game is okay, there is really not much new for this, other then the graphical enhancements made in Baldur's Gate 2 that they back ported to IWD. The new monsters (actually new, not old ones with a new skin) can be counted on one hand, and other then one of them - the final boss, they are kind of boring. Unless you have money to burn, this game should be passed on...
Rating:
Summary: More of the same
Review: When it comes down to it, Heart of Winter is just a bit more of the same of Icewind Dale. It is about 1/3 as long as the original IceWind Dale. A lot of reviewers are saying that is too short. However, seeing as how the plots of Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter are kind of weak anyway, I don't see that as a big loss. What few new features there are supposed to be didnt' really add much, in my opinion. The new weapons and new spells don't seem to do much that the weapons and spells in Icewind Dale didn't do. The best part about the game, I thought, was the final battle. I found it to be more challenging than anything in the original Icewind Dale. Whether to buy this game depends upon whether you think that the price is low enough to pay for it.
Rating:
Summary: More of the same
Review: When it comes down to it, Heart of Winter is just a bit more of the same of Icewind Dale. It is about 1/3 as long as the original IceWind Dale. A lot of reviewers are saying that is too short. However, seeing as how the plots of Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter are kind of weak anyway, I don't see that as a big loss. What few new features there are supposed to be didnt' really add much, in my opinion. The new weapons and new spells don't seem to do much that the weapons and spells in Icewind Dale didn't do. The best part about the game, I thought, was the final battle. I found it to be more challenging than anything in the original Icewind Dale. Whether to buy this game depends upon whether you think that the price is low enough to pay for it.
Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Expansion to an Amazing Game
Review: When the original Icewind Dale came out, I was absolutely stunned by the depth and story that it contained. The combat system (same one as Baldur's Gate) is truly amazing. And this expansion only makes it better. The new resolution (800x600) is great and all of the little interface features alone make it worth the purchase. But the kicker is the raised experiance cap (30th level baby!) and the new lands to explore. All in all, if you've got Icewind Dale (or even if you don't), then you need to buy this game.
Rating:
Summary: Not As Bad as Most People Think
Review: Yes, as most reviewers have noted, Heart of Winter isn't a very long game (though it's not as brief as some would make it out to be). And, yes, for those who bought this title when it first came out and paid the full sticker price (30+ bucks), I can understand the frustration voiced by so many gamers. Now, however, about a year after Heart of Winter first appeared, the price has dropped to bargain bin status: I bought HoW at my local mall for ten bucks! For this price, HoW doesn't disappoint. The game is on the shorter side, but I'd say it's the equivalent of 1 1/2 levels from the original Icewind Dale. Or, for those who prefer to measure their games in hours, HoW took me exactly one week to finish, approximately 20 hours. Those who have already played Baldur's Gate II will be familiar to the additions found in HoW: higher resolution, drop-away interface, gem bags, potion bags, scroll cases. There are some new enemies, new spells, and a final battle that is fairly challenging. Lastly, most Icewind Dale fans know that for those who own Heart of Winter there is a free downloadable expansion, Trials of the Luremaster, which adds another 15+ hours of gameplay. In other words, the time to buy the Icewind Dale expansion is now: you'll essentially receive 30-40 hours of gameplay for (in my case) ten dollars or so. You can't beat that! As for the game itself, HoW is mostly enjoyable. The enemies, overall, are much tougher, so you won't be able to mow through them like you did throughout Icewind Dale. Also, although you need 9th level characters or higher to play the expansion, I recommend not playing HoW until your characters have hit the maximum hit point level allowed by the original (1,800,000). My only complaint about HoW is that it's really linear. Sure, Icewind Dale was linear, too, but HoW forces you to literally trudge forward along, say, an icy cave path and smite the hordes of baddies that pop up (and there are a lot of them). And because the enemies are significantly tougher than most of the creatures in ID, the expansion at times can seem tedious: you feel as if you're logging in tiresome hours at the keyboard rather than enjoyable hours. Still, for those who didn't satisfy their crave at the end of Icewind Dale, Heart of Winter and Trials of the Luremaster should provide a decent fix.
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