Rating: 
Summary: If you like Europa Universalis and want to play WW2
Review: That's a brief and acute description of Hearts of Iron. Europa Universalis was Paradox's blockbuster selling tons of copies throughout the world and set the standard for a very detailed strategy game. The game was wonderful although you had to micromanage a lot and sometimes you lost sight of the big picture. In HOI this happens most of the time. Hearts of Iron is a EU2 set in the 1930's-40's. You may pick up any nation in the world but the game is focused in the "big" nations (US, UK, Germany,etc). Although I remember having much fun playing Australia or South Africa. The game has the same EU2 engine but adds new features such as government types (fascism, democracy, communism), military leaders or strategic resources. I played this game for more than 2 months and I replaced the poor manual with the superb forum on line. The people there were really helpful and have many cool tips for improving your playing. Overall, if you like EU2 and want to try it in the WW2 time period.
Rating: 
Summary: Greater than the sum of it's parts
Review: Hearts of Iron is without a doubt the best grand strategy game on the market, not that there are that many anyways. Hearts of Iron uses the Europa Universalis engine to good effect. The gameplay includes diplomacy, units tactics, and the old standby resource management. When you start a new game you can pretty much choose to play as any nation, though it makes for a more exciting game to play as Germany or one of the other super powers. You can also research new technology to make your armies and navies fight better but that is one of the caveats to this game. This game is a real time killer. You'll probably spend your first hour or so playing just building up your armies, getting better equipment, and making alliances. Only after war starts does the fun really begin. You can invade provinces, annex conquered nations and watch your empire grow! The gameplay is engrossing and a pretty nice challenge on the harder levels of difficulty. There are a few troubling parts to the game though and some can be quite headache inducing. The AI has the tendency to send small units into your territory, making you dispatch large forces to chase and capture them. This apsect isn't really strategy on the AI's part, it's just a nuisance. The AI enemy will also sometimes declare war on you and your allies without much of a reason. Try playing as Germany and see what I mean. Demand territory(even without aggression)enough and you'll find yourself in a war. If you attempt to be too aggressive you'll find it very hard to acquire or keep alliances. Overall this game is great and the different strategies that are possible will keep you glued for a while. Just keep in mind that the AI will do some stupid things sometimes.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and Innovative WWII Game
Review: Paradox has been a god among strategy gamers for those who have followed them through Europa Universalis I and II. Now they take that award winning system and applies it to World War II, and let me tell you that war has never been the same. This is perhaps what the game less recent "Superpower" should have been. You can play any country in the world within the 1936-1948 time frame. You then lead it through out this time period, increasing industry credits through building industries in your provinces and keeping your nation up to terms with the demands of the main resources: coal, steel, oil, and rubber. You can choose to play one of the major powers like the USSR, USA, France, Germany, etc...or you can play a minor nation. This includes Tibet, Venezuela...heck even Luxembourg! Using your IC you build military units and research new technology to make your army (and industries) better. As for following history...well that's up to you. There are "events" that let you choose how to do such things as Stalin's officer purge and, of course, the different demands by Hitler such as the Rheinland, Sudetenland, and Anschluss. In every aspect, this is truly a complex and unique game. Wargamers and micromanagers alike will enjoy this game, and I highly recommend any fan of World War II games try this out. It will be an all new experience for you. On a side note, there are now some mods available online that include not only patches that are now up to 1.05c (at the time of this review - 1.06 is expected out very soon), and there is a mod that allows the time to go beyond 1948. There is even a mod that changes the time period to World War I!
Rating:
Summary: GREAT IDEA, POOR EXECUTION
Review: A strategic WWII game that lets you start controlling any nation as early as 1936. The game lets you manage the economy, research better weapons/equipment, build your industry, build you military. Finally the game I've always wanted. Unfortunately there are serious flaws: Interface: difficult to set the resource allocation scroll bars to where you want them. Hard to understand what you are producing, trading, sockpiling. Wouldn't be big deal except for gripe #2. Instruction book:[BAD]! Does not provide any real information on production, trading on world market, convoys, research(anyone think that's clear?)etc. Instead it wastes space with info that's in the tutorial and a historical timeline that's better left to the library. Political options: Events are canned and you don't have much flexibility when it comes to diplomatic actions. You even have to declare war against a nation before you can invade! Try explaining that one to the 3Reich. Hard to follow the action: What are my units doing? Are they attacking the enemy that's in the same territory or just sitting there? These are the worst problems that I have noticed after 4 days. It is a complex game and very time consuming. Still, it's definately worth it for WWII/military buffs. I would have given the game 3.5 stars for a good effort. I hope that HOI 2 will iron out these deficiencies. Give it a try.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, but there's some weak spots
Review: I just got this game yesterday, so I may not have thoroughly played it. It's set in WWII, from the years 1936-1948. You could play a game from 1939-1948 and 1941-1948. I find it fun that you can play as any country you want from that time period. From Bhutan to the Liberia it covers many countries. Mainly there's the major powers, Germany, Italy, UK, USA, France, Soviet Union, and Japan. Every country falls into a category of Fascism, Communist, demoractic, or neutral. The major powers persuade minor neutrals to get on their side. A setback to being a minor nation is lack of stuff to do. You don't have much IC's (Industrial Capacity; the "money" of HOI) and much of a military. But playing a major nation is great fun. There is a massive technology tree. Too massive in my opinion. I guess I could say it gives you too many options so that you don't really know what they are about. There's like fifty, under different catagories; Infantry, Armoured, Nuclear, Light Aircraft etc. But the tech tree is so massive, and you start out with so little, that it's impossible to reseacrh all. You should focus on a few areas not all. (There's like twenty main cataegories). It takes s long time to research for most, from 60 days to 240 days. The dipolomacy option is I guess you could say is Hearts of Iron's "claim to fame". However, it is rather limited from my view. As Germany I could demand territory, but only a few countries can. You can declare war, annex, install a puppet regime, and a few more, but you cannot do more "fancy" stuff like sign different types of agreements, treaties etc. Playing as Germany, the Allies declared war on me in 1938, for no reason at all. I could ask for peace but they wouldn't give it to me. And some countries don't become your allies, but that's natural, although they don't give a reason. The militaries are extensive but a big probelm is the amount of time it takes to create a unit. Time to build one is measured in days, and it usually takes a long time for a good unit. FOr carriers and battleships I've seen 800 days. And a day in HOI takes awhile, like a minute. But the amount of units are incredible. Under three main catagories, land, sea, and air, they can be divided further, infantry, armored, destroyers, submarines, fighters, torpedo bombers, and transports for both sea and air. They're usually divison, squadrons, and groups respectivaly, but I've thet can be bigger when grouped under one of the hundreds of leaders they've researched. They can be shown on a map as little pegs or men. The graphics aren't too stunning, but that's okay becaus ethe gameplay is enchanting. A problem I've had is the amount of pop-ups that come up at an event. Every battle is popped up, (you can get rid of them easily, by right clicking and saying "Don't show again") and every outcome. It gets very annoying when you are playing as a major nation with massive armies. Terrain I've found out isn't a crucial factor as in other games. You can turn on the map to show terrain, and the pictres for terrain are very plain and ugly. Going over rivers takes time, but engineers (which can be built with units) help make it faster. I've never seen weather in actions, but I know it affects the outcome of battles, especially air battles. Overall Hearts of Iron is a pretty fun game, though in the furture I can see myself getting tired of it, especially after Christmas. There are many options, for lots of fun. Pros:
1. Great gameplay
2. You can play any country at that time!
3. Huge armies can be built
4. Lots of units to choose from
5. Diplomacy is a big part +/-
1. Massive tech tree
2. Graphics are okay (too good can take away your attention) Cons
1. Plain graphics
2. Lack of things to do (just three typres of games)
3. Too WWII-centric
4. A.I. and be stupid at times (like when war is declared for no reason)
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but ultimately unfulfilling
Review: I've played this game with the 1.05 patch, which greatly changes the game, i.e., making it a lot harder to do well. It's too much of a simulation. It's hard to do things that didn't happen in real life. It's very time-consuming and complex. Micromanagment is critical to success. If you have the patience for that, you might like the game.
Rating:
Summary: A Dream Come True
Review: Based on a (highly modified) European Universalis 2 Engine, Hearts of Iron lets you play World War 2 from 1936 to 1948. Play as any country, on the entire globe. Research hundreds of military technologies, assign hundreds of individual commanders and politicians. Deep diplomatic model lets you join alliances (either democratic, communist or facist), influence other nations, trade resources or technology. Resources (steel, oil, coal, rubber) are critical to keeping your war machine running. Trade for what you don't produce (protect your convoys). Develop the technology to convert coal to synthetic oil, or oil to synthetic rubber. Better yet, conquer the sources of what you need. Diplomacy is key to preventing potential enemies from acting until it is too late. Play Czechoslovakia and refuse to give up the Sudetenland. Play the US and struggle to get your people ready for war. Play as any nation on the map (sorry, Monaco and the Vatican are not represented). Programmed by the team that brought you EU and EU2, detail and replayability are guaranteed. For fans of Grand Strategy, this truly global World War 2 game is a dream come true.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent idea, poorly documented. Be sure to patch.
Review: The game is fun, especially if you have ALOT of time. The level of detail can be overwhelming, but is also fun. You have control over generals, resources, trade, science, consumer goods, just about every major area is covered. Graphics suffered for good execution. You can play any country in the world that existed at the time. Literally any country. How well you do is another story. But it's fun to play, say, Nationalist China every once and awhile. Basically, it reminded me of what everyone wanted wargames of my youth, the old board games, to be. Another interesting point: It is a European game, heavily promoted in Germany.(...) The website provides a lot of documentation, which you'll need. Here's the bad: 1) It doesn't work well out of the box. Patch it before you play.
2) It's very poorly documented. The manual says there are things that aren't there, and doesn't meantion things that are. Go to the website and look at the forums. That's the only way to make it work.
3) Mac and PC versions are not compatible. That means no long game sessions between friends unless they all have one platform or another. There's really no excuse for this, especially given the low-level of graphics.
4) It takes a REALLY long time to play. This can be a bonus, but it can also detract. I basically play it when I'm home sick for a week from work.
5) Victory conditions are not scaled to different countries. If you play China, you are basically held to whatever side you join in the war, probably Allies. But if you don't join an alliance, you don't "win".
Rating:
Summary: Slow moving - Complex - Unexciting
Review: I played this game avidly for two days then, permanently uninstalled it from my computer. I am an avid wargamer, going back to the days when most games of this genre were boardgames. The old Avalon Hill title " Hitler's War ", would be a much better choice. Considering that this is a wargame, combat is unexciting and it is very difficult to predict the outcome of an individual battle. Given all the complexity, one has to either slow down the gamespeed to a slow crawl or pause it constantly as events unfold. As a single player game, Hearts of Iron is not the best choice out there. It might do better with mulitple-players but, I'm not willing to give it the chance.
Rating:
Summary: For those willing.... the best grand strategy game around
Review: OK -- lots of bad rap (and some good) on this game. I'll start off with this... Hearts of Iron gets 5 stars in my book for the best strategy game around, but I take one away for the game manual. Sorry, I'm one of those who believe a great game should have equally great documentation. The manual is poorly written, has typos, and leaves entire aspects of the game completely untouched. Hence, you feel even more overwhelmed by an already deep game. Having said this, it makes discovering the gems of the game that much better. roadtowar.com is THE website to go to for answers. There are forums covering everything, with tips from guys who play A LOT. Once you put the time into figuring out all the games nuances, the reward is there. For those who trash the game, saying they don't like having to micromanage economies, pick leaders of armies, and figure out the enormous (and accurate) tech tree.... I suggest that maybe REAL strategy games are not your thing. Stick to good, but very different "strategy" games that are much shallower and easy to learn, like Warcraft and Age of Empires. For those who like real, in-depth, strategy with lots of options, and deep, solid gameplay, Hearts of Iron is about the BEST you can do. You do have to be prepared for a time commitment to enjoy it to the fullest, though. Just don't give up on it, and you'll see what I mean.
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