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Hearts of Iron 3 lets you play the most engaging conflicts of World War 2 as any country and through multiple scenarios. Guide your nation to glory between 1936 and 1948. Wage war, conduct diplomacy and build your industry in the most detailed World War 2 game ever made.

I'm sure this game will be great after another couple expansion packs, but Paradox Interactive has publicly admitted that they knowingly released it in an utterly broken and unplayable condition, so keep that in mind when considering buying their new releases. Hint: It's better to wait two to three years after they release a game and pick up the "Complete" edition out of the bargain bin that's actually playable.

This is the most certainly case with HOI3. It's been almost year since it's release and the game still suffers from bugs and design failures that render it unplayable. Don't make the same mistake as me: give it another year and buy it for super cheap. That way you won't be rewarding a company that releases garbage in an attempt to make a quick buck. Then fixes it through $20 expansion packs.

After almost a year on the market, Hearts of Iron 3 still hasn't addressed the glaring bugs that it shipped with, let alone lived up to the promises its promoters made. This game is still a work in progress, and at this pace, it won't be finished until at least 2012. As a game, it isn't fun, since most of the features of the game still have yet to be fleshed out or brought to a semblance of realism. If you are a student of World War II, then it will give you lots to think about at least. The game escaped from beta testing onto shelves, and it seriously damages the reputation of Paradox Interactive that they would not promptly fix the game. Buy a WW2 history book instead - it'll be more fun.

Hearts of Iron 3 is a great game in most aspects. I bought this game 1 week after it was released so its the standard game. Here are some of the aspects of the game that I highlight.
1. Hearts of Iron 3 is a very complex game, but with hours of playing it becomes fun. All the content in the game are very accurate and helpful.
2. The game allows you to play with almost any country in the world, but that depends on what country are you playing with. If you play with a country like Albania, its no fun because all you do is accepting trading agreements. ESPECIALY if you are not at war, so you have to wait until war brakes out somewhere to move your 2 units of infantry.
3.Production and Technology is very realistic and realy makes you feel that you are progresing.
4. Battles in this game are fun and sometimes a battle like Iwo Jima is easier than you thought. Ground units move a little slow though.
5. Reasources in this game are very crucial and may decide the outcome of a battle, but sometimes it spoils the fun.
6. Lastly, the game is very heavy and took a lot of space out my computer, so you should think about where to put it.

This game is very fun to some people and boring to others, but I certainly enjoy it. 4 of 5.

I am basically an HoI2 addict. I've been playing it for years, and keep on coming back to it. That game, though not perfect, is so close to fine that any flaws I could mention are mere quibbles. I play a game once or twice a month.. All I need to do to lose myself is to cue up Nationalist China or Turkey and two or three hours, and I am utterly copacetic.

When this iteration of the game came out, I was pleased. I expected great things.. Knowing that the game would probably be buggy for a half year or so, I decided to wait for the patches to slake my curiosity.. At a half year, I dropped by this site and a few others, and was dismayed to see that a lot of guys were panning it, hard.. I decided to wait longer, to really let Paradox work it out. For any other game, I would never have bought. For HoI, I couldn't help myself. I had to give it a shot, and hope that I would enjoy it despite the negative word if mouth.

Well, I've played a few games through now, and - even though it pains me to say this - I have to say that the naysayers are right. I really wanted this game to be great. But the game totally lacks the tightness and focus that makes HoI2 work. The tech tree is an amorphous mess, the politics and diplomacy (which in HoI2 are mildly complex, but are focused with neat conceptual synergy) are just sort of there, and felt lackadaisical and haphazard. I played the thing for a few days, kept hoping that it would click, but instead of coming together, I finally just realized I wasn't really enjoying it at all.

The game seems to have been tweaked by the patches- it didn't seem too slow, and the gross grammatical and geographical errors that earlier reviewers complain of, seem to have been fixed.. But like many others say, those details aren't the problem. The game just doesn't work conceptually. And for a big fan of this franchise like me, that really stinks.

Paradox Interactive's "Hearts of Iron III," is the third (obviously) installment of an operational level simulation of World War II for the PC.

The second World War has been a mainstay for video gaming since the days of Wolfenstein 3D, and analog gaming since, well World War II. In most of the games I've played, however, you only get to control one person, or for real time strategies, you get watered down control of military units.

In HoI 3, the gamer gets complete control over a belligerent or neutral country from 1936 to 1948, and unlike most attempts at World War II strategy games, the amount of countries to choose from and the level of control is simply staggering.

Do you want to play as the U.S. and work with Japan and Germany to take down the Soviet Union and United Kingdom? Well now you can. Would you like to play as Ireland and remain neutral until the U.K. is overextended, at which point you liberate Northern Ireland? That's perfectly achievable. Would you like to play as France and get curb-stomped by Germany pretty much regardless of your tactics and ability? Probably not, but if you play as France, this outcome is as inevitable as the impending Limp Bizkit reunion tour.

On to graphics.

For a game made within the last year, the graphics in this game are spectacular. By spectacular, I mean spectacularly bad. Think two-dimensional map with squares indicating combat units and squiggly lines representing cities.
Now imagine this map was put together by Lauren Caitlin Upton (Miss Teen South Carolina, 2007 - awesome answer about Americans not knowing where "The Iraq" was on maps...just youtube it). So, geography is not a strong suit in a game that uses a map for a board. A lot of cities are missing, some are in weird places, New York is in New Jersey, Boston is in New York, Midway Island is only about a third of the way there. It makes island hopping pretty interesting.

HoI 3 is technically a real time strategy, but in order to play effectively, you have to pause...a lot. Even a seasoned gamer will, at first blush, find the level of micromanagement in this game to be a bit much. The technology tree is quite intimidating at first, but as long as you remain goal oriented it's not too difficult to work out.

In the grand tradition of recently released games, HoI 3 is virtually unplayable out of the box. I mean it's bad, glitches like crazy. If you want to play this game and have no way to update it with the current patch, don't bother with it, it will crash often.

I hate the new play testing method game designers have of releasing an unfinished game and letting their customers do all the beta testing. I know it seems odd, but when I buy something, I kind of expect it to work as advertised.

Based on everything, from the lazy play testing, bad maps, annoying level of involvement for all operations, I really wanted to hate this game, but it has the most important charm any game can have, playability. Once I got the hang of it, I just couldn't stop playing. I found it ridiculous and fun to invade Japan, as the conquering Canadians, my moose mounted, hockey stick wielding, cavalry triumphantly raised the Maple Leaf over war-torn Iwo Jima, and I was hooked.

I recommend playing as a minor power at first to get the hang of the game. Countries like Austria, Australia and Canada are perfect for learning and still being able to contribute to the war effort.

Overall, I give "Hearts of Iron III" an enthusiastic 7 out of 10. A good patch fixing the map and making the tutorial better, and some of the controls more intuitive would bump it up to a solid 9.