My friend's store did the order x amount and get a demo version (think x was 8). Came in yesterday in time for game night (normally EDH, multiplayer Magic) and we were hungry to dive in. This whole review is based off a 5 player deathmatch that we played.
It's his store's copy so I do not have it in front of me to help with the review. This is being done from memory so I apologize if I mess up anything.
Initial impressions:
We opened the box and oh my gosh look at all the chrome.
5 pre-painted Planeswalker figures that were reasonably well done.
6 Creatures of two types for each planeswalker/color in colored plastic of the planeswalker/color (eg: 3 Kor Hook masters and 3 Rhox for Gideon/White).
For each creature type there was a matching card with stats and abilities. Also a card for the planeswalkers with their stats and abilities.
There were 10 white heroscape dice (swords/shields/blanks) and black D-20 for first player and various abilities.
A Deck of Spells (I think 60 total, 12 in each color).
The printed terrain boards with planeswalker story/fluff on the backside of each one. 4 Runes to activate on the board for bonuses (I think 4, we only played with 4 of them). 2 large cardboard stand up that interlocked to stand on the battle field and provide cover. Several Heroscape tiles to form a mini hill.
Read through of the rules:
It's Heroscape...OK there are some extra's but it's Heroscape. This was one of my biggest gripes...the rulebook. It did a very good job of covering all of the existing Heroscape aspects, moving up levels of terrain, line of sight for attacking with creatures, falling damage, etc. What it didn't cover well was the added things. Casting spells, summoning creatures, spell targeting. It had the basics of those things but when we got into the game we were constantly trying to look up answers to questions and coming away frustrated (Hasbro,START BUILDING A FAQ).
Basic turn structure:
1) Draw a spell card (S)
2) Declare an active Squad/Planeswalker card for the turn (S)
3) Move active Squad/Planeswalker figure(s)
4) Attack with active Squad/Planeswalker
5) sorry can't remember the name of this step but it allowed (S)
So you have your Planeswalker on the board. For the first turn that's the only card you can declare as active and move with. Now the rules stated that between steps 2 and 3 your Planeswalker can summon "up to two squads" worth of creatures. 386
Once those creatures are summoned their cards are considered active and you can activate them for turns as long as the figures are on the board.
The summon paragraph is thrown in there like it's an afterthought though. A big part of the game is to summon creatures to fight for you and you can do it on an unofficial step wedged in to an existing system.
The other big part of the game here is the spell cards. There are only two types currently, Sorceries and Enchants. Spells can only be played on your turn and only in certain steps (1,2,5 where I put a (S)) at least that was our understanding from the rules. While this got more than a paragraph it did not get a full page. Whenever unanswered questions came up we applied MTG logic to the spell and it seemed to work.
There is no spell cost and you can cast up to three a turn.
Playing the game:
It was 5 player Heroscape. Once we got our squads summoned on the board it was exactly like previous Heroscape games except for the ability to only activate one character/squad and to be able to choose each time my turn came around. The spells were a nice touch and added a nice twist on the game. Each color had cards that looked or were named after MTG cards and did much the same thing as the named card. Blue even had counter-spells.
Biggest Gripe here was the turn counter. They give you an impossibly small counter and you have to use the rule book to track turns (with the small counter on the page in the appropriate circle).
Final Thoughts
It may sound like I was not happy with the game but that's not true.
I was mostly frustrated with the rule book. Hasbro has made an effort here to make Fantasy Flight look like the <PERSON> of rulebook writing. I honestly gave up looking about an hour in. It covers almost any Heroscape-esqe query excellently. All of the additional material feels severely bolted on. 386