I think the Heroes Chronicles were the best, all of which used the engine from 3. 3 itself sucked, IMO. The campaign was just dreadful.
4 is very patchy, but one or two of the campaigns are quite interesting. Overall, I preferred 2 though, out of the actual HoMM original releases.
Even if I wanted, I couldn't argue with you, Elliot.
I did love the Heroes 4 campaign, especially the Half-Dead one. In addition, the new combat perspective brings the series closer to Ages of Wonders, my personal benchmark for all RTS-RPG games. The campaign of the 3 isn't great: I find it hard to even focus on the story: in a nutshell, I choose the campaign with the starting town I like and then play without reading the story-related letters and dialog.
Nival did some impressive games in the past. Besides the voices, the game mechanics they used were very effective. I believe Ubisoft will give the needed kick to Nival and Arkane to make both Heroes V and Might and Magic X memorable.
P.S. Welcome back!
