Rating: 
Summary: Great new adventure
Review: Shadow of Undrentide is a great new expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights. Rich plot, long storyline and gameplay that will keep you glued to the monitor until the end.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad for an expansion
Review: Shadows of Undrentide doesn't do much to change the way Neverwinter Nights is played, and this is generally for the best. The main changes in terms of characterization are five new prestige classes, a scattering of new feats and skills, and a few new spells for each spellcaster type. New creatures have been added as well, including two new familiars. Lastly, several new tilesets have been added: snow, desert, and Netherese ruins.
The new campaign isn't as long as BioWare's infinity engine game expansions (Heart of Winter, Throne of Bhaal) but isn't too short either. There's enough new things to see to make it interesting, and the roleplaying aspect is significantly improved over the original NWN campaign. For one, you really have the chance to act evil and still get through the game, which until now- in the general universe of D&D computer gaming- has been difficult at best. The plot is a pretty standard artifact hunt, but it does take some interesting turns. Fans of the Forgotten Realms D&D setting will appreciate this especially, but it's easy enough to follow that those who can't tell Elminster from Gandalf should be able to make sense of it. As for the campaign difficulty, it is pretty tough. Whether out of some perverse humor or just because the original campaign was too easy, the developers seem to be baiting players to their doom. The prestige classes are the cool new thing about Shadows, but none of them (with the probable exception of Arcane Archer) are spellcasting classes. However, I found it extremely difficult to play single player without a spellcasting character [if it matters, I thought Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and the original NWN were all fun, but too easy]. You will often run into masses of enemies that individually are no match for your combat prowess, but taken in whole will make hay out of your warrior or rogue. When this happens, there's really no substitute for a good fireball. Of course, this can be remedied if you get all your friends online to help you out, which I heartily recommend. You can bring along one of several potential allies- a dwarf rogue/priest, a half-orc barbarian/sorcerer, or a kobold bard. I found the spellcasting AI to be abysmal- the priest won't heal you when you're almost dead unless you ask her to, and the sorcerer seems to have nothing but ray of frost in his repertoire- and uses it even when he would do far better just meleeing the enemy up. The good news is you can now manage their inventory, so if you have an extra set of armor or weaponry (another plus in not being a warrior) you can give it to them. The pathfinding and trap handling AI seems to be improved as well. NPCs will no longer charge over a trap when they spot another one beyond it, and will finish disarming one before attacking an enemy. New items in the expansion include grenade-like weapons such as alchemist's fire and acid flasks. These are useful early on, and in large quantities can duplicate that much-needed fireball effect, but are oddly expensive and don't do that much damage individually. New weapons, loot, and armor are of course available, though these generally don't have a new look. Some new potions and assorted artifacts can be found, some of which are quite interesting. For example, there is a bag that summons creatures depending on what ingredients you put inside it. The new prestige classes available are the Arcane Archer, Assassin, Blackguard, Harper Scout, and Shadowdancer. This is where I have a bit of a gripe with Shadows. Save for Arcane Archer, these classes are, frankly, worthless. They were already pretty bad with the core rules, but some of those rules require things that NWN can't do (e.g. crafting Harper Pins as a Harper Scout). The developers overcame these problems by changing some abilities and, in my opinion, the computerized versions are even worse than the pen and paper ones. Also, as I mentioned earlier, there aren't spellcasting classes (arcane archer is far less arcane than archer). I was hoping they'd add the archmage or loremaster at least, but no luck there so you'll have to settle for the new familiars and spells. The familiars are the pseudodragon and fairy dragon, both of which are very cool. Spells include such notably absent ones as Shield, the Bigby's Hand series, Inflict Wounds spells, and Earthquake. Of course, perhaps the best thing about Shadows is the potential fan content. The new tilesets look great, and the complex interactions in the new campaign show what can be done with the engine. Once the mod community sinks its teeth into the expansion, there will no doubt be plenty more adventures to share. This has always been the best part of Neverwinter Nights, and will surely be the best part of Shadows of Undrentide.
Rating: 
Summary: Get it
Review: The best game for the PC gets even better with this expansion packs. The much-touted new character classes have yet to impress me, but new items, spells, feats, and henchman interactions are excellent. A must for NWN players.
Rating:
Summary: soon... very soon...
Review: The first in a planned series of expansions from bioware, Shadows of Undrentide will introduce 50 new spells, 30 new feats, 5 prestige classes, and a host of other goodies. It will not, unfortunately, support epic levels, so keep in mind that even with all these new choices, you're still limited to level 20. Sorry folks, not until the next expansion. double-darn.
Rating:
Summary: Better story, better puzzles, better characters
Review: The Neverwinter Nights (NWN) game engine represents what I hope to be a new era in computer gaming: platforms that invite users/players to create their own games with near-complete access to the game engine. Sadly, while the NWN platform itself was a major breakthrough, the included gameplay was routine, uninspired, and sometimes even silly. Shadows of Undrentide (SoA) shows that the Bioware crew can not only create a great technical product, but also deliver a solid story. Unlike the original NWN storyline, SoA has a coherent plot that, while short of "compelling," kept me interested. The fact that it was written for single-player mode meant the storytellers could focus on developing non-player characters rather than try to have the story work with lots of different players (not an easy task!). While many have complained about the lack of multi-player support, personally I've been unable to commit to that kind of gameplay anyway, and the few experience I've had were disappointing. The fact that NWN is both a generalized toolset and a game means a lot of tradeoffs: one is that the graphics and environments become pretty uninspiring after a while because they re-use the same assets over and over again. To me, this is almost a blessing, as it forces story developers to focus more on the story rather than dazzle players with graphics. Toolset enhancements and expanded assets (monsters, spells, etc.) make this expansion essential for those of us creating content. Although not approaching the peaks of the Infinity Engine series of games, the NWN platform still has a lot of room for growth, whatever the power-gamers who want shiny graphics instead of good stories might say.
Rating: 
Summary: Better but not great
Review: This expansion pack fixes a lot of things, but this game is still not on par with Baldur's Gate II. The game is still too linear, and you still have henchmen you can't give anything to (other than a potion which they will drink on the spot). I found this expansion pack was worth about 5 days of game play before I got bored and stopped playing it. Better that the orginal which didn't last 2 hours. It's hard to believe the people who made BG and BGII, some of the best selling games ever, didn't build on what those games great: party role-playing. What we want is Baldur's Gate with better graphics. That's it. The game mechanics were almost perfect, the multi-threaded stories where fun, and the party building was great. So no NWN SoU is not an equal to BGII, but with this expansion pack, it's worth a few days of your life.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but dissapointing
Review: This expansion pack has the same quality gameplay at the original Neverwinter Nights. The graphics are good and the game is well done. However...I was generally dissapointed with the game. I used my same character that I developed in the original game which made 95% of the game a cake walk. There was virtually no challenge until the very end. Also I maxed out my character well before the end of the original game and was unable to advance him further in this expansion pack (I did not like this). At the end of the expansion pack I was still using all of my kit from the original game...meaning I ran across nothing of value greater than I was already carrying. So...the game was moderately fun but did not allow me to build on my character and for me that is where the fun is.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but dissapointing
Review: This expansion pack has the same quality gameplay at the original Neverwinter Nights. The graphics are good and the game is well done. However...I was generally dissapointed with the game. I used my same character that I developed in the original game which made 95% of the game a cake walk. There was virtually no challenge until the very end. Also I maxed out my character well before the end of the original game and was unable to advance him further in this expansion pack (I did not like this). At the end of the expansion pack I was still using all of my kit from the original game...meaning I ran across nothing of value greater than I was already carrying. So...the game was moderately fun but did not allow me to build on my character and for me that is where the fun is.
Rating: 
Summary: I hope the other expansions have more than this...
Review: This expansion will give you A) five new classes, only two of which are worth playing (the Blackguard and the Arcane Archer are fun). The other classes are inferior to most others.
B) A handful of new monsters. The madusa and the basilisk were a good addition, but I was hoping for a lot more.
C) A handful of new spells, most noteworthy are the bigby's giant hand spells. When will prismatic sphere be added? It's the best spell for wizards and sorcorers!
D) A few minor rule changes, such as the removal of level requirements for the use of magic items (This never should have been added into the game in the first place, and is right out of Diablo 2).
E) A new campaign, which is much better than the original campaign. If you like playing solo, it's fun, but not as fun as playing online.
F) The editor has been upgraded. Secret doors, and simular objects, are much easier to add into your dungeons. It would be nice if these fixes and add-ons could be gotten in a free patch, rather than a $... game!
Rating:
Summary: games is too buggy
Review: this game, and the original, needed to be tested more before release. there's people everywhere, including me, having fits trying to play this game. there's no support from bioware. all software problems are blamed on the user and the publisher of the game, things are never the software creator's fault. though the game is fun, it crashes so often its fun-factor drops dramatically. patches are nigh non-existent as bioware is too busy creating expansions to de-bug the existing code. ka-ching? if you want to buy a beta-game which may or may not work on your system, this is the game for you.
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