It's time for some critics.

[Metathron]

Originally Posted by Zhuangzi

I'm still waiting for a real spiritual successor to XCOM, and Master of Orion 2 (i.e. not MOO3, or Galciv 1/2), and Jagged Alliance 2.

You mean Jagged Alliance 3, right? And I'm sure you know it should be released any day now, right? So no need to wax nostalgic about that!

Oh yeah, if you're thinking of getting HoMM V, take my advice and just skip the vanilla game and the first addon The Farmers of Hate, err The Hammers of Fate, and just go straight through to the standalone expansion Tribes of the East, which has all the other two have and lots more. The only thing not featured in TotE are the campaigns from the first two, but there is a (legal) mod that lets you play the original and first addon campaigns under TotE, complete with all the cutscenes and what have you, so there's really no reason to get the first two.

My favourite games of all time are HoMM II and IV. I only moderately liked V, but with TotE I grew to love it as much as the other two.

Anyhoo, IMHO its gameplay is superior to HoMM III. Long story short, I think you'd really like this game.