Hearthstone: Addiction awaits

Before I left for vacation, I got a beta invitation for Blizzard’s newest game, Hearthstone. It’s still in closed beta, so I can’t pick at it or praise it or reveal anything you can’t figure out from the forums and the website.

Hearthstone is an online card game. If you’re a gamer, you’ve probably spent at least a little time with card games, such as Magic the Gathering and assorted other fair in the same vein. Hearthstone builds on the World of Warcraft franchise: It has blood elves and green orcs and warg and all the other creatures that inhabit the WoW pantheon. So any of the 20 million people who have ever played WoW will be right at home.

So how is it? Well, I can’t get into the details, but I think it’s okay to say a little.

I’ve been through the card game mania, before. Collecting and playing in a few competitions. I pretty much thought I was over it. I was wrong. Hearthstone is incredibly addictive. I am more addicted to this game than I’ve been to any game in a long time.

Hearthstone looks like another winner for Blizzard.