Rating: 
Summary: How can you complain about this game?
Review: Seriously. The graphics in this game are very nice, the plot is by no means bad, and there is so much variety in the different avaliable races and modes that you're destined to find at least something you like. I, for one, love every aspect of this game, and see absolutely nothing to complain about. The bottom line: you won't regret buying this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good game; better than WC2 but not SC
Review: Graphics:
The graphics in Warcraft 3 are the best I have seen in any RTS game I have seen. The game utilizes a useless, but very cool zoom feature that allows you to actually rotate the camera to a point where you are actually facing the troops, and you see exactly what they see from the same angle that they are at. The surrounding environments also are very realistic. For example, in swamp levels, you actually see lily pads floating on top of the water. In addition to the stationary objects in WC3, there is also a lot more critters in this one, (i.e., wolves, deer, birds, and of course sheep). The critters are done very well too.Audio:
While the background music and soundtrack in this game are not up to the par of the breathtaking soundtracks of Warcraft 2 and especially Starcraft, it is adequate. In other words, good but nothing special. The battle sounds seem strikingly similar to that of WC2 and again while it is nothing special it is far from terrible. Blizzard did add a few more sound effects like, the sound of trees crashing down when your peasant units harvest lumber. Also you bigger units make thundering sounds with every step they take, it is not very loud, but you may be able to hear the thundering faintly with a decent audio card. Presentation:
The game features 4 distinct races as opposed to the three from SC and 2 from WC2. These races are, Humans, Orcs, Night Elves and Undead. A neat thing about WC3 that was not present in its predecessors are "Creeps" (Not the same "Creep" from SC). Creeps are basically units that neither team controls. Creeps will attack ANY unit that comes in their area, some Creeps are very week while others are very strong. Creeps usually guard gold mines and other places that would be useful to you. This prevents you or your opponent from just going to every gold mine with one peasant to expand. It now requires you to fight for your expansions. Gameplay:
As you expect the game play is very similar to that of SC and WC3, basically you have a peasant unit and harvest resources to build new structures and more units. There are a couple of major differences though. First, you are in control of a "hero" unit. A hero unit is a unit that has advanced strength, hit points which is much more powerful than your regular units. Heroes have the capability of taking on a small force of enemies single handedly and winning. Also in addition, heroes can gain experience points. These experience points can be used to make your hero even stronger and also give them more powerful spells. Finally Heroes have their own "hot keys" assigned to them, (F1 - F3 keys) making them easily accessible in battle. Another feature about the game play that is different is that you now only have a 90-food limit, this kind of restricts your game play in that you can't really build huge armies as you could in WC2 and SC. This can be a good thing or bad thing depending on how you look at it. It basically forces you to attack rather than just sitting back and watching your army grow. Finally while WC2 had air, land and sea units, WC3 only has air and land, and also there seems to be fewer units as compared to WC2 and SC. That does not bother me, since I prefer the limited number and it seems to make the game simpler in a sense. I find the unit choices sufficient for me. One bad thing I have to mention about the gameplay is your unit commands, the move command no longer moves your injured troops out of danger, if one or you troops is about to die, and you order him to move back, he will move, but as soon as your group is attacked again, that same troop will move back into battle, then ultimately dying. This gets very frustrating especially if you're trying to save as many troops as possible. The only way to keep them from attacking again is to force them to hold position. This takes away precious seconds from you and could even cost you a battle if playing a very good opponent. One good thing I must mention is that some units have an "auto casting" feature, which allows you to automatically cast spells without having to click an individual unit. Shamans for example, can auto cast "bloodlust" on your orc units while you are fighting. This saves time and can be turned off if desired. ...Overall:
Overall this is a very good game; better than WC2, but not SC. The main gripe I have on the game is battle net. Another thing you may want to consider before buying this game is that you will need a fairly powerful system with fairly power hardware to run it effectively. I had a two year old 32MB card that served me fine up until WC3. But it simply would not work on WC3. When I upgraded to a 64MB it ran with no problem. This game is definitely for die hard warcraft/starcraft fans, but for those who like having huge armies and not having to micromanage resources, then this game may not be for you.
Rating:
Summary: single player rocks
Review: I don't really care about all the battlenet whining, i've been to busy ENJOYING the single player campaign. This is the best warcraft yet!
Rating: 
Summary: Same old stuff
Review: WC3 is just another RTS. The addition of heroes is nice, but (game balance issues aside) isn't enough to make this game feel new and different. If anything, I found WC3 to be a step in the wrong direction. The single-player campaign is so highly scripted it feels like a Sierra game, where every two minutes the computer takes control away from you and you have sit and watch another cut scene. The maps are very restrictive, with narrow pathways (you can't walk through wooded areas) channeling you down one or two directions in every level. This left me feeling claustrophobic. The levels make the game feel more like an old 1D side-scroller than a modern, open-ended "3D" game. The combination of heavy scripting and tightly constrained levels means there is zero replay value in the single player campaign. If you want a RTS that really has a new and different feel, try Kohan Immortal Soverigns and Kohan Ahriman's Gift.
Rating: 
Summary: Patheric RPG w/ anti-RTS elements
Review: Quality over quantity emphasis too high, this imbalance ruins the game.
Rating:
Summary: Does it live up to the hype or crumble under the pressure?
Review: If you've never played a Warcraft game in your life (God help you), then you'll undoubtedly spend countless hours playing this game until your eyes start to water. But for the rest of us, Warcraft 3 has a distinct "been there, done that" feel. I can't honestly give this game anything lower than four stars because of the immersive and challenging gameplay and fantastic map editor, but it lacks what most sequels lack: originality. Some may scoff at this principle, but even with the addition of the Undead and Night Elves, two new races to play with, the gameplay feels identical to that of Warcraft II. Some people may say that's not bad, and in some respect it isn't. But I was hoping for a lot more for a game that's been hyped up for nearly three years now. Some other small but definitely unwelcome additions are the maximum food limit, thus limiting you to build up a forceful army, and the Upkeep, which I also strongly dislike. Also, there are framerate problems galore if you decide to play with more than four armies in a single map, and it basically becomes unplayable once you have a sufficient army. On the bright side the Map Editor that comes with the game is unmatched in terms of what you can do. Customize almost anything you want, choose your terrain, map size, alleys, then add neutral units, thick forests, and whatnot. This alone should keep you busy for weeks. If that's not enough you can faceoff against others on battle.net and compete for supremacy there. Overall I think that well Warcraft 3 certainly didn't live up to the hype that surrounded it during it's three years in development, it's still good fun. The Map Editor and two new races to play with should overwhelm all the negative aspects I listed above. The new kids will love it and the seasoned Warcraft veterans may still get a kick out of the third instalment.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but well below expectations!
Review: Warcraft III is a very fun game to play. It's just like Starcraft, but with slightly better graphics. I enjoyed the addition of heroes, and the two new races made things interesting. But this game really did not live up to my expectations (or its hefty price tag!). The gripes: 1) BattleNet strategy is meaningless - the player who rushes his or her opponent first wins, period. There is no trade-off between offense an defence - if you shoot for defence you lose. 2) The single-player campaign on normal difficulty is too easy. I finished it in two days! 3) The campaign on hard is too difficult. It takes six or seven tries to beat each scenario, even on the Human campaign! 4) The single player custom games are just like BNet - the computer rushes you hard and fast, and you lose if you don't take the offensive immediately. All in all, it's a pretty good game, but nowhere near as good as the hype, and not even as good as Starcraft. It also seriously lack replayability in single-player. Given the lead time for this game, Bizzard could have done a much better job with this game.
Rating:
Summary: I had an open mind...
Review: I went in with a completely open mind when this game came out. I was a beta tester, and the multiplayer could quickly get old with its rush-or-be-rushed mentality. So when it came out, I immediately went into single player mode. After finishing it, I realized it was probably the most disappointing games I have played since Myst 2. So many people looked forward to this game for years, and what do they get? They get a game that has four races, none of which are unique, a piecemeal storyline that is has little, if any consitency, and a monotonous single player, along with multiplayer theme which revolves around rushing and nothing more. To make matters worse, the game, in both modes, revolves around your hero. You have no choice, you can not do anything in either single or multi without your hero. Seems odd no? Like Blizzard is trying to force you to do something? And throughout, I have tried not to make the inevitable connection between WC3 and one other game... yes, Starcraft. If you even remotely liked Starcraft, this game pales in comparison. For all the reasons mentioned above, and many more. You won't find an equivalent to this great game in WC3, not even something to keep you occupied till the next Blizzard title, because the playability quickly wears off. I must say this is the first ever Blizzard title I must recommend AGAINST buying, it just isn't worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Sort of dissapointed. From an avid RTS and RPG player.
Review: Updated review. I've lowered my rating from 3 to 2 stars and added complaints 5 and 6.
I hate to be a nay-sayer amonst all these glowing reviews and words of high praise from the beta testers but I have some issues with the game.These mostly refer to single and multiplayer custom battles.
1. No difficulty setting for the comp. The computer cranks out troops and builds its base way faster than a human opponent because it can do multiple tasks at once. We can only select to do one thing at a time. It can also move its heros and troops about the map WHILE still building its base. This means it can attack the nuetral units to gain levels for its heros AND locate you faster than you can do the same. The result; you usaully get overun in about 7 to 8 minutes. Its heros are level 5 or 6 while your's are 2nd or 3rd. This makes it hard for novice RTS players (which I am not) to get into the game. Most games have difficulty settings. This should be no different!
2. Starting positions. As far as I can tell, there is no way to preselect your starting position on the maps. Again, most RTS games today have this feature. Why is Blizzard behind on this stuff? Yes, it will group you and your allies together but the enemy comp could still be right next door! This combined with complaint #1 can equal a real tough time and a quick trouncing.
3. Population cap is too small. At least that is my opinion. Compared to other RTS games it seems very small. Barely enough to do the job. I know the game is supposed to be more about the "heros" but I've always liked the grunts. Plus, if you are the undead and your banshee posseses an enemy builder unit (Peon, wisp, or peasant) and you try and build their stuff the pop cap still remains the same, unlike the Protos strategy in Starcraft. You should at least get SOME population bonus for pulling that off or there should be some other way to increase it.
4. Ummmm....ships? Where did THEY go? They were in the last game. What happened? I can understand Blizzard eliminating the need to gather the oil to simplfy resource management but why the ships? Naval battles added another dimesion to combat. Just one example; you could load troops into a transport ship and land them along the shore near an enemie's base. Most of the maps have water. In fact many are just a large island or groups of small ones surrounded by it. They even have gorgeous water graphics. So again, why loose the ships? Seems like most of the WC3 players have forgotten about them too. Probably because they were too young to play when WC2 came out!
5. Base defenses are weak at best almost to the point of being a waste of resources. They do so little damage they can easily be overun and destroyed with only a few casualities inflicted. The resources would be better off spent on offense (ie; troops and upgrades). Unfortunately, this shortcomming only adds to the "build troops and rush your opponent as fast as you can" mentality of most players (mostly 8 year olds judging by the maturity level in Battlechat). RTS stands for Real Time STRATEGY! I think the kids who rated this 5 stars don't know that.
6. Many of the spiffy upgrades and special units that require some prerequesits hardly come into play due to the shortness of most battles. You just don't have time to develope them.
The only way I see around some of these problems is to play with only people I know and set a truce (15-20 min) before the fighting starts (spying and killing spies is legal).
Don't get me wrong. I think the game has some potential and I hope Blizzard can address some of the issues I mention (especially if they intend on doing Star Craft 2. I'd hate to see them ruin that!) Right now I'd call this the Hack 'N Slash of RTS games. I just felt that someone should bring this stuff up.
FYI: The RTS games I enjoy the most right now are Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge and Empire Earth. If you feel these are too complicated then I'm sure you love WC3 just the way it is.
Rating:
Summary: Not that bad!
Review: Given this game wasn't the greatest Blizzard has evercome out with, but it's not that bad. I enjoyed playing it, but I did see several shortcomings. The plot did [stink]. The cut-scene graphics were eye candy, but looked too fake. Didn't follow storyline that great. If you are a blizzard fan of a Warcraft series fan, then I'd buy this game. I just wouldn't get my hopes up on a great, out of this world game.
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