Others say...

"Convert? Maybe."
I think it's important for any game reviewer to do the following:

1) Get the game on the table and play
2) Remember that any game, no matter what the system is, is only as good as its players and DM
3) If you've only played v3.*, remember that 1st and 2nd edition players felt the same way about "your game", so keep an open mind.

I'm an old school, Fighting Man, white box gamer from 1978 and have seen the cornerstone roleplaying game go through many developments. In many ways I felt the same way about v3.0 as I did about my first look at 4th. "This isn't AD&D! What are they doing?" Until I got v3.0 on the table and tested it. Then I was hooked. So many problems fixed and so much fuel for imagination. After a while I realized 3.0 was broken too, in its own ways; Rangers, Bards, Monks, Paladins all had their issues and Clerics are outrageous powerhouses, so house rules abounded, most of which showed up in v3.5.

I blustered at 4th edition for a lot of reasons, some really good reasons, even many of the reasons people in these reviews point out. Yet after reading through the core 4th rules several times and finally getting the game on the table, I'm finding myself in a similar position. I'm coming to love it. My opinion about the observation that now it's a Mini's game is, D&D was born a mini's game, and what made it into a roleplaying game was imagination.

What at first appears as limited combat options is clearly not. Where a fighter's options were limited to "swing your weapon (read: Longsword cause it was always the best choice) or come up with something unusual and have the DM make a rule", they now make incredibly balanced and effective combatants and protectors. Combats are clearly more dramatic and suspenseful, with teamwork being the main focus of any encounter.

Non-combat in any game is about roleplaying. Put the dice aside for a while and focus on the interactions. Non-combat is about heavy RP'ing punctuated by the occasional die roll. Combat is about tactics and dice rolling punctuated by the occasional flavor-text description of how you did what you did. Balancing deep, meaningful roleplaying with fast-paced dramatic teamwork-filled combats is what DnD (or I should say D&D) has always been about. 4th does that very well.

There are some broken rules (multiclassing needs some tweeking, but my light armor wearing, two weapon wielding, Fighter/Rogue is so much more effective in his role than he ever would have been in v3.*, and no one was more surprised than me to find that out), but they will be fixed over time, mostly and most immediately by house rules. And don't you tell me you don't love House Rules. That's what sets RPG's apart; making the game, the setting, the experience your own.

Clearly and unarguably, 4th and 3rd are as different as 3rd and 2nd. (Though at the time people believed 1st and 2nd were worlds apart, with hindsight we can see 2nd is more like v1.5 than not.) What 3rd did was fix the problems that couldn't be fixed by revamping the game from the ground up. 4th has done the same.

Of course there are a lot of things I wish they had done differently like add more flavor text and history to monsters, races, classes, etc. Putting in a real Index is also a must. I also wish they had put more emphasis on the idea that just because a power is described a certain way doesn't mean that's how YOUR character does it.

I encourage anyone to playtest the game with someone who has read the rules well. Not so that the rules are followed to the letter, but so that everyone knows how the rules play so you know what really works and what needs your imaginative flair and kit-bashing skills to make yours.

What I do have to say for 4th is this: get druids and monks back in the game quick. I miss them.

"Two months in and loving every session . . ."
I will simply start by saying that D&D 4th Edition is an almost complete departure from previous iterations of the system... and in my gaming group's opinion, it is a great and refreshing thing. All of us have been playing since 2nd Edition and some of us since the original Chainmail. All of us have realized over the last several weeks just how annoying, version 3.5 really was. For all of those who question the amount of roleplaying associated with this edition, I would question you as to when a book ever truly provided roleplaying. It's always been my experience that the players do that, not the book or rules. As far as playability, 4th Edition is amazing. When I initially learned of the new healing system, I shook my head and said "NO!There is no way, it sounds ridiculous." Now that I have read and played... I have changed my tune. Also, for the first time in D&D (as far as I'm concerned), tactics have become a key component of every session. You will not survive many encounters if you do not quickly grasp the concept of teamwork (adding tons of roleplaying potential, in my opinion). Overall, I would recommend the D&D 4th Edition Player's Guide to every one who's wanted to play D&D and never has. As for all of the old-timers, I would tell you to at least give it a fair shake. Some of us get set in our ways and opinions as we age and therefore, may not give this edition the opportunity it deserves. I will tell you that I play with a skeptic and a cynic and they both, after some gameplay, love the game. I find myself counting the days to the next game and not wanting to pack up when its over. I would consider that the best endorsement I could possibly give.

"Squandered Potential"
When I first heard about 4th edition I was quite excited. I couldn't wait to get my hands on all the brand new shiny rules. I read all the updates about the new races and classes from Wizards of the Coast online, and I thought "hmmm a little bit strange that they seem to be making so many changes, but they still sound like great ideas". When the books finally came out, I bought my copies right away, and read through them. At first I was confused by the fact that the new game was COMPLETELY new. There was basically nothing left of the old editions in 4th edition. It was a totally new game. Strange, I thought, but I ignored that little voice telling me to be wary and went ahead and started up a game with some of my friends, all D&D 3.5 players who had also been waiting for the new edition to come out... all except for one friend who refused to play because he hated the new changes. I tried to explain that they weren't changes as much as it was a whole new game, but he said that was even worse. I ignored his opinions, but now in hindsight, he was absolutely correct.

As we played the game, at first we thought the game was a blast. It was fun having special "powers" as a fighter, and being able to use spells over and over again, but as the weeks progressed we started to notice some things as we reached higher levels (I think that 12th was the highest level anyone in our group reached). We weren't really enjoying the game like we did the first few times when it was still new, and 2 players started making excuses not to show up at the game, and 1 other player though he came to the game every time, constantly expressed an interest in going back to 3.5 or playing a totally different system. Essentially everyone was bored with 4th, and after having only played for about a month and a half. We'd had 3.0 and 3.5 games that had lasted years without players leaving or expressing boredom. No one was looking forward to the next game session and no one really cared about their characters. We played a few more times, but then agreed to quit and started a new 3.5 game, but we decided to use only the 3 core books of 3.5 (PHB, DMG, and MM) to see if we became as bored with it as quickly as we did with 4th. Needless to say, that game is still going (but we did allow one player to use a prestige class from complete mage).

Overall, while 4th edition seemed fun at first, we quickly realized that character building choices, such as feats and powers mattered very little in the long run. It was almost impossible to build an interesting and unique character. Even the classes bled together, despite having different powers. The only element of the characters that seemed unique was the race, but still every character of the same race seemed the same, and if "you didn't play enough different characters to know if they can be unique or not" is your counter argument, then you would be wrong as far as I'm concerned. We played 2 times a week for almost 2 months, and with 3 complete parties wiped out by assorted "balanced encounters" each of us played at least 4 characters.

Which brings me to another point that I haven't seen many people mention; the increasesd lethality of this edition. Our DM started with a module (keep of the shadowfall or something like that) and we were killed (one person escaped) by a group of kobolds. We chalked it up to inexperience with the new system, and tried to use better tactics next time. We made it through to the end of the module but were almost wiped again by the final encounter (2 people out of 5 died, but only 1 person was left actually conscious when the bad guy died). We figured that maybe the module was just designed to be a meat-grinder style adventure so the DM started planning his own game with encounters balanced according to the DMG. Two games later our party was wiped out completely (no one escaped) by an elite solo monster that was supposedly a balanced "boss" encounter for our party level. After this another player wanted to DM for a while, so we started new characters but at the same levels as our last characters. It went pretty good for a while, but then one player stopped showing up to games, for various reasons, and then some number of games after that (i think it was about 2 levels since we started over, I can't really remember) our party was TPKed again. In between the start over and the TPK 2 people had died in isolated situations but those seemed normal at the time. Even though we were TPKed the DM said that we'd "been captured" and we had to fight our way out of prison, which was kind of fun, but it felt fake and undeserved.

When 4th edition info first started to appear on the internet, there was talk of characters being "pumped up" with hit points and that this would increase early level survivability. It turns out the opposite is actually true. The characters have more HP but so do the monsters; unbelievable numbers of HP in some cases. Fights seem to drag on and on as the players swing and do minor amounts of damage to the creatures massive HP scores which are in every case but "minions" equal to or greater than the players HP scores. Minions on the other hand may seem like a good idea; monsters that can be used as a howling horde of weaklings, but die quickly. However, in practice they take the fun out of the battle. When you hit a minion it feels like a "gimme", like patting a little kid on the head and saying "good job! you hit the ball!" (straight to the firstbaseman). They all have one hit point and die from a single hit, but they feel very gratuitous, almost pointless. Not only are they simply an annoyance, but they deprive the player the fun and excitement of scoring a critical hit for maximum damage, or even of rolling for damage at all. Very disappointing.

I could go on detailing other oddities of play experience that our group encountered, but other reviews listed here have pointed them out over and over, and in greater detail than I really care to, mainly because I simply don't care anymore. 4th edition was an opportunity for WotC to fix and update the previous edition, but instead, judging by the final product, the only thing they truly ever intended to update was the company's stock price (Oooh, he made a joke about Wizards only being out to make a profit! Get him! Nerd Rage!). They created a detailed but boring board game, from which I am sure they will make quite a bit of money off of those fooled by the brand label still attached to this unrecognizable edition. I plan to recoup some of what I gave to Wizards by selling my books back to the local game store, since in just a couple of months I've had my fill of 4th edition.

"This is not D&D"
This is not D&D. This is a board game made to look like D&D. Requiring the use of miniatures alone ruins this for me. I understand some of the changes with characters' abilities, and that's fine. However, it seems the imagination is just lacking in this version. The feel of D&D is just not there. I was very excited about this, but I am truly disappointed.

"this will do to D&D what the Christian Coalition could never achieve"
To say I'm against this new version of D&D is like saying I'm against racism or genocide. Did the Christian Coalition create this new version or is WOTC trying to destroy its cash cow in hopes of gaining enlightenment through poverty. The very least WOTC could have done was not put Dungeons and Dragons across the cover of this book. Just call it something else and leave the greatness of D&D untarnished. This book is like a serial killer, it looks all nice on the surface, but there's a whole world of horror waiting inside. This handbook has obliterated the problem of meta gamers by removing player's ability to create their own characters. Now you get a couple of similar cookie cutter choices, cut and past, and you're ready to play the exact same elven wizard that 20 other kids in your neighborhood just wrote up. Excited, you should be, whether you play a fighter or a wizard you will have exactly the same ability to have exactly the same effect on the outcome of each and every battle scenario. What about how the characters will be different for other situations? There aren't any, the new character classes are designed so that everything you do should be combat orientated. What else is there to role playing except beating up the bad guys and collecting goodies for your efforts? Nothing, if you are playing an online RPG, and that's exactly what this book has been written to emulate. So if you are not satisfied with this 4th edition, check out Pathfinder Beta, you can down load a copy for free on line, play it with your friends, and tell Pathfinder what you like and don't like about the game so that the company can make the proper changes before they release the completed version. Pathfinder is trying to put out an improved version of 3.5 D&D, which is a really good idea that WOTC should have been the first to have. I won't be playing this monstrosity nor supporting the new rehashed line of WOTC products that I already own in a 3.5 version. Thanks for trying to empty my wallet without giving me anything of value in return. I hope other people read this and avoid buying this product without reading the book first.