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That being said, I don't know where I find myself on that spectrum. Now, let's begin with the review.
Looking at the cover of the book, you get some great expectations. The front cover has the name in big red letters with a picture of a human magic user and a dragon-born warrior ready to combat whatever is in front of them. The back has a wonderful blurb about how you play a hero in a world of fantasy, and mentions that the game requires other products; the Dungeon Master's Guide, the Monster Manual, D&D Miniatures, and D&D Dungeon Tiles. I'll be complaining about the requirement of those last two products after a bit, but let's avoid the personal bias for now.
The first chapter is concerned with how to play this new addition of D&D. It is short simple, and explains a lot without going into too many game mechanics in advance. It goes into waht a role-playing game is, a description of the typical worlds that are played in D&D (high fantasy), and a history of the Dungeons & Dragons game as a whole. It then gives hard numbers and terms, explaining what characters are, what the Dungeon Master does. While explaining what is needed to play, it again mentions that miniatures and either a battle-mat or dungeon tiles might help with the game. The core mechanic of d20 is explained in the best way possible; a short and simple explanation that needs no more description than given.
Next we have rules on making characters, and again we find short and simple rules that don't need much explanation. It lets you know exactly what you'll be doing when you make a character and discusses some hard numbers, such as ability modifiers. For those who have played earlier editions of the game (i.e. 3rd ed or 3.5), you will see a lot of what you're used to. It does explain some new concepts, such as your saving throws now being something akin to a new type of Armor class in that they are a solid set defense instead of something you role for.
The ability score generation methods have been truncated to just three (instead of one in the PhB and 5 more in the DMG). YOu can use their set list of numbers (which are fair and equal), you can use a revised point-buy method, which gives you fairly decent numbers. It then gives you the original random rolling method, with a warning that you shouldn't use this method, as it will either give you an average set of numbers that are worse than the first and second method, or make your character virtually unplayable. It finishes this last method by reminding you that if you're in the RPGA, you won't be able to use the character if you roll for your stats.
After this, is a treatese on alignments, and a list of deities that are a mishmash from no specific campaign setting (a departure considering that 3rd ed used deities from Greyhawk and 2nd ed did everything but order you to use the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting). The rest of this chapter is an explanation on making rolls in the game, a one-page primer on making your character more flush and full of story (this is supposed to be an rpg), and a lengthy explanation on how levelling up works.
After this, we have the races. The first thing that's noticeable is that the hard numbers are right up front, and the race background is second. This is a bonus to those who just want to pick a race and go. You don't have to read up on your race if you don't want to; you just pick a race you think is cool, right down it's stats, point at the picture and say "I look like this, everyone." Much more streamlined. You get several races new to the D&D game, and several old ones (not all of them, but that's nit-picking). Suffice it to say, most players will be happy with the races that they can choose from; the ones that were removed were the ones that most players didn't play anyway (and if you did, their stats are in the DMG, so make a case with your Dungeon Master and see if you can play them).
The next section of the book, and by all means the largest section, is the class section. After a small mention on numbers, you go into each class by alphabetical order. The four core classes are still there (fighter, cleric, wizard, and thief... I mean rogue), along with several others. Each of the classes are designed to serve in one of four various roles in the group. Either you are a lead the group, do a lot of damage quickly, control the pace of battle, or defend the others.
Each class has the powers and abilities associated with them immediately after their description. No longer do you have to go to the back of the book to get those spells for your wizard or cleric. Now they're right there in the section on your class. This is both a blessing and a curse. You have the info right at hand, but if you are thumbing through instead of going page by page, you'll get lost VERY quickly (I did just trying to read the dang book to review it. Twice).
Later in your character's career, the game forces you to choose a "paragon path" at the proper level. These are pretty much prestige classes for those who have played 3rd ed. There is a fair selection of paths. In fact, there is two for each class. Now this is just a nit pick, but when I play a character class, I would like the option of being able to stick with my class instead of being rail-roaded into a prestige class at a specific level. Okay, nit pick done.
After the chapter on classes (which is roughly one-third of the book), comes the chapter on skills. Now as a player of the other additions (and you may have noticed I've been trying not to mention them all that much), this is where I feel the game is most improved. The skills are streamlined so that each skill takes the role of several skills that did the same thing in a different way (e.g. all those open lock, sleight of hand, and disable device skills, which all deal with rogues, are now one skill, thievery).
The mechanics have been reworked marvelessly. In earlier editions, you got points to spend on your skills(or Non-weapon Proficiencies if you remember THAT term). This meant that your favorite skills were high, while those you didn't care about were abysmal. Now all skills go up as your levels increase, but you choose some skills to be "trained." This means that you will be good at everything, but still better at some things than other people. Much improved
Feats are pretty much the same as they were in previous games, only adding a fiew that give you new and different powers. One interesting thing is that multi-classing is now done with feats. You pick a feat that allows you to dabble in the class you want to multi-class in. You won't get to use all of the powers of the new class, just a few general abilities. No more clunky multi-class and favored-class mechanics.
The equipment chapter has most of the stuff you'ld expect to find (if you played other additions, there are less armor and less weapons available). One thing I personally did not like, and this is another nit pick, was that magic items are now placed in the PhB instead of the DMG. It's just a nit pick, and doesn't really change anything, since most players knew the ins and outs of all the magic items anyway.
The combat chapter explains the rules for combat in list fashion, describing how combat works, the different things you can do during combat, and different conditions that can happen to you. It feels a little like the designers weren't trying; as if they had explained what your powers did in the class chapter and were just listing the stuff they missed in this chapter. Examples are given using over-head view of dungeon tiles and miniatures, which show how miniatures and dungeon tiles are useful, and give a practiacl explanation of the various rules.
Finally there are rituals. These are the spells that didn't fit in the neat little categories that were given to the magic-using classes, such as the cleric and wizard. A magic-user can cast these at any time, but they require time and magical components, which means you have to spend gold to do them. Since there isn't a single ritual that takes less than ten minutes, it is IMPOSSIBLE to use them during combat, and some of them would be pretty useful during combat,such as silence and shadowalk.
Okay. Now that I've gone through the meat of the book. let's take a look at what I didn't like about it.
Let's start with the classes. The classes are all-in-all balanced, with each class being completely equal to any other. This may sound like a good thing, but it means that no particular character gets to shine when they really need to. The number of abilities given mean you have to choose from a wide selection (something new if you're used to playing a combat monster), and a limited number of selections that you can make from that selection (something that will set those used to playing the magical-mavens off pretty quickly). This means that everyone will be doing the same thing for the most of it, picking their one special power or ability and using it. Not much deviation from that.
About 65% of the powers are designed for combat, which puts the focus of the game squarely on combat. This means that you're planning to be in combat more often than you'll be actually playing in character.
In fact, if you notice, there's not much in there to make you WANT to role-play. There's one measily page on playing your character in a role-playing fashion (page 24), and the rest talks about tactics and combat. There are several mentions of needing miniatures and some kind of 1-inch square surface (they suggest multiple times to buy D&D Dungeon Tiles) in order to help make combat more fun and exciting. The back of the book even has an add for D&D Insider, a monthly-pay service that let's you play online with your friends (a good move, but it should be free)using online versions of the miniatures and tiles to make your dungeons.
All in all, this game doesn't sound like a role-playing game. There's no reward for role-play and no actual reason to do so. Considering that Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast and It begins to click: Hasbro basically had Wizards dumb the game down so that it was more like a BOARD GAME. There's no reason to play your character beyond "I attack the monster over there." You can add rules in to do that, but ultimately, that's just trying to bandage a sucking chest wound.
Personally, If I want to play a board game, I'll go get Atmofear or Heroscape. If I want to play D&D, I'll go back to 3.5 or even 2nd ed. If I want to play a role-playing game, there are far better choices.
I put down that the style was classy and well done, but the substance was lacking. I meant it. 4th ed Dugneons & Dragons is pretty and put together well, but is really just D&D miniatures 2nd edition. They took a great game and mixed it in with a miniature combat game to improve sales. It probably has to a degree, but I don't consider it worth the cost.
