Rating: 
Summary: Great but not for the beginner
Review: I have been playing D&D and AD&D in various incarnations for over 10 years now and I have to say that these are some of the most beautifully presented volumes ever. While expensive what you get for you money is 3 gorgeous full colour glossy manuals. But be warned, these books are not for the inexperienced newbie. As an experienced player I had no problem understanding and navigating thru the tomes, but if I were a new player I would have face real problems. These books are really written for the experienced player as they are heavily loaded with rules and don't really give a good introduction to the game. The other problem is that while one book is called the players manual and the other book the dungeon masters guide, the truth is that you can't really do full character creation with just the players handbook. For example all the prestige class options are detailed in the DM's guide! Go figure. Were they short of material to fill up the DM book or something? So if you're an experienced player and, if like me you enjoy pretty books filled with game mechanices, then go for this. Otherwise stick to the basic set or you will be overwhelmed.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Products, but Poor Service
Review: I ordered this gift set online, and I paid the additional charges for overnight delivery. When I checked the next day, I expected to see that my order was already shipped and on a truck somewhere in my area. Instead, my order was still "shipping soon" and the expected delivery date was an additional 4 days! Was I refunded the difference in my shipping charges? No.
Rating:
Summary: Upgrading to 3.5? This is it.
Review: Ok, if you, like me, have finally decided to crack down and upgrade with the rest of the gaming world to the new 3.5 edition rules for D&D, this is probably the way to go. Gripes about the short time between the release of 3e and 3.5e aside, this is the easiest and by far cheapest way to go. If you purchased each of the core rulebooks individualy you would shell out between $30-$40 per book, thats $90-$120 depending on where you buy! But at $63 you save a bundle and get the whole thing in one fell swoop. So if you are a veteran of 3e (or before) and are looking to update to 3.5, this is the way to go. If you are new to the roleplaying scene this bundle may be too overwhelming, and I would suggest to simply buy the Players Handbook.
Rating: 
Summary: If you're starting new it's fabulous.
Review: Ok. I'm not going to compare this with the older eds. I'm just going to say for new people joining the game this is alot easier. The set up is quicker, the rules are better, the game is balanced better. This edition is easier to learn from scratch and is better at getting new people in because more is spelled out.... The only complaint... my dice roll low and they need to roll high for everything in this ed. :) This set is the complete set for the game. If you already have someone running the game then you only need a player's guide to start. If you want to run a game... well.. hopefully you've at least played it before. To run a game you could conceivably need every book imaginable, but many of the rules were traditionally the dm's call.. so just the DM's guide and player's guide is a must. The monster manuel just makes it all a bit easier. It's fun. It's incredibly interactive and there is tons on the internet to spice your game up. You can even get the character sheets needed online for free.
Rating:
Summary: If you're starting new it's fabulous.
Review: Ok. I'm not going to compare this with the older eds. I'm just going to say for new people joining the game this is alot easier. The set up is quicker, the rules are better, the game is balanced better. This edition is easier to learn from scratch and is better at getting new people in because more is spelled out.... The only complaint... my dice roll low and they need to roll high for everything in this ed. :) This set is the complete set for the game. If you already have someone running the game then you only need a player's guide to start. If you want to run a game... well.. hopefully you've at least played it before. To run a game you could conceivably need every book imaginable, but many of the rules were traditionally the dm's call.. so just the DM's guide and player's guide is a must. The monster manuel just makes it all a bit easier. It's fun. It's incredibly interactive and there is tons on the internet to spice your game up. You can even get the character sheets needed online for free.
Rating:
Summary: A well thought out plan
Review: The artwork is well executed. The layout of the books is not unfamiliar; even though it is 20 years since I last played. This collection was the least expensive way I could review all of the changes made in that time. It saved me just under $40 dollars to local retail sales. The box is nicely laminated; easy to remove the books from, and slip back in for storage. The colors are subdued and tasteful, and will not look garrish or inappropriate on any shelf. This contains the Dungeon Master's Guide, Player's Handbook, and Monster Manual in 3.5 Edition rules. (And I started in the construction paper bound set. My! have we changed.)
Rating: 
Summary: Rating depends on pricing.
Review: The individual books are great and each deserve 5 stars for content, but the point of a gift set is that there should be some reason to buy it instead of the individual books, and I do not see a convincing reason in this case....
Rating: 
Summary: I'll pass, thank you.
Review: There is only one reason to offer such a comprehesive update so soon... insufficient playtesting of the original. But, if you are going to buy them, you may as well get them all at once... or, wait till the next version is released in ten months or so.
In my previous review of a D&D 3.x product, I tried to refrain from naming other roleplaying products. By not making these comparisons, I ended up not saying much about the 3E system, either. I will correct both mistakes here.
I played the 3.0 version of 3E, and I found it to be boring. When 3.5 came out, I went to my local bookstore, sat down with it few times and read over the material. I decided not to buy it, because it was just more of the same. So this is a review of 3E, not the superficial differences between 3.0 and 3.5. And if you love 3E you may as well stop reading, because I don't. Here is what I don't like about 3E:
* First and foremost, the "balance" issue castrates magic-using characters. Think about it. In fantasy fiction, who are the characters who can singlehandedly wipe out an army? The Wizards, that's who. Magic is supposed to be an advantage, and the characters who wield it are supposed to be dangerous. This is one issue that 1st edition AD&D got right, and in subsequent versions it got changed to the point that it was entirely wrong. There is no correlation between fantasy wizards and D&D wizards in 3E. In 3E, magic is practically a weakness.
* Second, there is no consideration of roleplaying elements. The characters are thought of purely in terms of their combat abilities. Combat-related stats take up the majority of the space on character sheets in other games, too, but they at least include virtues, vices, hooks, personality traits, contacts, and other things that are links to a broader story. To 3E, all of these things are irrelevant. It is a ROLLplaying game, not a ROLEplaying game. Any of the White Wolf products does a better job in this area. In fact, since 3E pays NO attention to the literary side of character development, it's safe to say that ANY system is better than 3E here.
* Third, even though the combat rules are extensive, they still just scratch the surface. It is amazing how much space is spent in 3E on a superficial and clumsy tactical engine. GURPS and Rolemaster both do tactics much better than 3E, and they are consistent, too. In 3E, you just have layers upon layers of rules (some nonsensical, others contradictory) without any sense of coherence. The reason (I think) is because they are trying to do detailed tactics without actually going to the necessary level of complexity. They want to "dumb-down" the game for the broadest possible audience, and their dumbed-down tactical engine simply fails to do the job.
* Fourth, the system and its presentation lack imagination. If you doubt my word on this, pick up a copy of Nobilis sometime. You will find more of a creative spark by reading one margin note in Nobilis than you will be poring over the entire corpus of 3E materials. If you are looking for a more mainstream example, look at Adventure! The product captures the feel of its genre perfectly, and inspires (rather than bores) the reader. I think this is another by-product of the fact that the publishers wanted to dumb it down as much as possible before it hit the shelves.
* Lastly, for all these flaws, it is the most expensive system around. True, the core rules of the Hero System is a $40 book, but it is one book, not three. The fact that "suits" (and not roleplayers) are making many of the 3E decisions has created an interesting phenomenon: a generation of roleplayers who EXPECT their hobby to be expensive. People, this is a joke. We have got one of the cheapest hobbies there is... UNLESS you are playing 3E. How expensive is paper, pencil and imagination? The dice are expensive? Try the Tri-Stat system. It's a flexible and cinematic system, and I can use that cheap pack of d6 I picked up at the drug store. Roleplaying is only as expensive as you want it to be.
Oh, and there is one other perk that comes from playing one of the cheaper systems... it's going to be a much better game than 3E. Buying these D&D 3E books is like paying full price for a BMW, when what you're really getting is a Yugo in disguise. The only benefits of the system are that you don't have to be very literate or imaginative in order to use it. To, me that could hardly be considered a glowing recommendation for a roleplaying game. I'll pass, thank you.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Deal
Review: This is a great deal, and as far as I know the first of it's kind. Go figure, it came out just after I bought the first two core rulebooks and right when I finished saving for the third. ;/ . I bought the first two rulebooks for 30 dollars so seeing Borders put them up for 20 dollars makes me happy and I'm definitely getting last one here. Also, props to Borders for selling a box set that has all three together for about 18 dollars a piece. When D&D version 4 comes out, I'm definitely buying here and I recommend this 3.5 set to anyone who doesn't have any of the books yet.
Rating:
Summary: Need changes but . . .
Review: This set fixes some things that needed fixing but you know that they will just come out with another edition as they can't get it right.
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