It's hard to talk about TBC (The Burning Crusade) without talking in depth about World of Warcraft, however I will try my best.

Firstly a few important things you should know about WoW and TBC:

1. Its online only, no offline at all and you will have to download A LOT of updates you will definatley need a broadband connection. Even if you did spend days downloading on a slow connection playing the game well would be near impossible.

2. You have to have the original wow subscribed and installed to install and play TBC.

3. You have to pay a monthly subscription, however, this is the same wether you have only WoW or both WoW and TBC. Currently its £8.99 a month.

4. Currently there have been no new servers opened for 10 months, this means on every server you will be playing catch up and starting a new character wont be as much fun or the same experience as what it used to be. However a patch has recently been released that makes leveling from lv 20-60 faster which can be seen as a good thing, if you want to catch up, or a bad thing if you really wanted the true WoW experience.

5. TBC is now really a must buy if you want to continue playing WoW. Because of the raising of the level and the new gear, staying at 60 will make you inferior (a hell of a lot inferior) and also you will have noone to play the game with. This is a very clever ploy by Blizzard, buy TBC or you cant play our game.

6. A new expansion is comin gout next year, rumoured around june/july, this will again raise the level cap and add new features, it is more likely new servers will be opened then, so you might want to wait. However if you do you willl have even further to catch up.

7. This game is VERY addictive, once you get hooked you will be spending a lot of time on it and wasting a lot of your social time if you are not carefull. It can get very expensive. I have now been playing since launch of world of warcraft its been over two years thats a lot of monthly pay.

8. Time consuming, kind of linked to addictiveness you really need a lot of time to play you have to lv from 1-70 which can take 11 days gametime, thats SOLID playing for 11 days to reach. An average dungeon takes between 1-2 hours to play and a raid can take (over a week) up to 10 hours to play. This is time consuming dont play if you dont have much time.

Now I've labled the important facts its down to the main part of the review. This is heavily leaned towards TBC only, although I've added a bit at the end about how WoW is now from 1-60.

The new features that TBC gives you are:

1. An increase of the level cap to 70 (it used to be 60).
2. New spells for each class.
3.Two new playable races blood elves and draenei.
4. An entire new continent, Outland.
5. Many new zones and high level dungeons.
6. A new profession jewlecrafting.
7. Flying mounts.

A brief overview of each feature:

1. Dont be fooled by it only being an increase of 10 levels, leveling from 60-70 takes just as long as leveling from 1-60 does. This can be seen as a good thing if you enjoy leveling or as many people felt just an stupid stepping stone to get over which blizzard added to take up more of peoples time and more of peoples money.
2. New spells for each class, this amounts to a "massive" two or three per class as well as two or three talent spells per class. It really doesnt make much of a difference to the game or create much more excitement. Something that would and could have been included in a free patch.
3. Two new playable races does add another dimension to the game and with them came two new starting zones Ghostlands and Azuremyst Isle, they are both enjoyable to play and add a unique scope to the game. However you do have to start from level 1, which may not appeal to someone who already has a lv 60.
4. You must be level 58 to go into outlands. There are 7 new zones in Outlands each with there own merits and down fall it depends on opinion, but overall I feel that they are worse than azeroth. (see gameplay for more details)
5. There are many new 5 man instances and some good 25 man instances, sadly I feel that they are not as fun as Azeroth 40 man instances, however there are lots of them to keep you entertained.
6. Adds a whole new dimension to the game, you socket gems into your armour and as a result get added stats, its a good profession to be and is just as fun as any other profession. However most proffessions are something to make money and not fun to level up. If you are learning a profession make sure you level it up as you level from 1-70 and not just at the end.
7. Flying mounts everyone dream when playing the original WoW and they dont disappoint they can only be used in outland and you must be lv 70 but they are incredibly fun to ride, free roaming around the whole of Outlands and they look good too. They do come at a price though, first mount is 1000 gold which isnt too bad, but epic is 5000 gold and takes a long itme to get.

Thats a brief overview of what you get for your money. I highly recommend you look at an original WoW review as well as this one before you decide the game, you cannot have one without the other.

----------------------------------------STORYLINE -----------------------------

The Burning Crusade is a vast war of destruction with the goal of razing every world that had been ordered and shaped by the ancient Titans. It is a great war that rages beyond the ken of normal mortals. All who fight this secret war know that, despite the posturing and ambition of individual demon lords, Kil'jaeden was always Sargeras' second. He is the Legion's true leader. Out in the Great Dark Beyond, Kil'jaeden waits as demons and mortals die, biding his time for his minions to grow strong once again. You end up raidiing and fighting many bosses to fight back the evil legion and defeat the self proclaimed leader of outland Illidan.

Magtheridon's Lair - Magtheridon.
Serpentshrine Cavern - Lady Vashj.
The Eye - Kael'thas Sunstrider
Gruul's Lair - Gruul.
Black Temple - Illidan Stormrage

The Blood Elves:

The blood elves you play live in Quel'Thalas. You seek to reclaim your lost homeland and destroy the Scourge at any cost. Rommath was sent back to Azeroth with a message of hope for the blood elves that one day Kael'thas would return to lead his people to paradise. The blood elves have learned advanced techniques to manipulate arcane energies. With renewed purpose, the blood elves have now rebuilt the city of Silvermoon, though it is powered by volatile magics. Emboldened by the promise of Kael'thas' return, the weary citizens of Quel'Thalas now focus on regaining their strength.

This is roughly the story line that Blizzard provide and makes for a good lore story. However apart from when you are leveling from 1-25 you really dont end up fighting for your town or trying to take over the land, you join the Horde in their fight to help stop the demons take over Azeroth.

The Draenei:

You play the untainted Draenei who have crashed onto Azeroth in a dimensional traveling ship sabotaged by the malicious blood elves of Outland (not the blood elves that joined the horde). This is rather a far fetched and ridiculous story line. However your main aim is to get rid of the demons in Outland and so you do end up following hteir story line and seem to fit more in TBC apart from the space ship.

OVERVIEW: Overall the story definatley depends on if you are a dedicated warcraft fan or not. To me the story is great, its exciting and is fresh compared to the genereally horde vs alliance take and it feels like as you are leveling from 60-70 that it is building you up and you are all the time working to take downt he legion. Other people say they are disappointed as they dont feel the lore keeps to warcraft as well as it should.

Storyline: 9/10

-------------------------GRAPHICS and SOUND------------------------------

The graphics have a slight cartoon style to them and because of this you dont feel like you need to see outstanding graphics. It also helps it so it can run on a lot of people pcs. The lands are VERY vast and some of the buildings and forests do look awesome, not in breathtaking graphics power but in the style they have done them.

As for sound, its outstanding the music is amazing from level 1-70 which plays in the background and the noise of attacks, deaths, NPCs voices are all amazingly done. You definatley wont be let down by the sound. Very few games, I feel, sound matters that much, but on WoW it definatley lifts the game up.

OVERVIEW: This game isnt about graphics, but the cartoon style is good enough for most people and you dont hear any complaints. The sound is awesome and really takes the game up to a new level.

SOUND and GRAPHICS: 9/10

---------------------------------------GAMEPLAY-- ---------------------------

Really this section could go on forever, I'll just add what I feel is the most important factors of the game.

~~~~PVE (Player Vs Environment)~~~~

The Combat System: This is no difference to the first WoW, you have an interface with all your skills on it, which you get as you level. There are a VERY wide range of skill and attacks, and each has there own cooldown (how long you can use again after first using it), cast time (how long it takes to do the attack) and cost, wether this be Rage(warriors), mana (most classes) or energy (rogues). Basicaly when you go into combat you click the interface to do your skills. This is the style that most MMO's take and is very effective at first it can be fairly boring when yo have few skills, but you soon build them up and using them at the right time and in the right order can be challenging although in my opinion its very easy to learn and the game in whole is very easy.

Leveling: At first a major part of the game, there are 70 levels and each level you have to gain certain amount of xp to get to the next level, every 2 levels you get skills. The best way to level is to do the quests and there are thousands of them. Each level takes more xp to get and it general takes around 4 to 5 days gametime to get from 60-70. One good thing is that if you dont play you get rested xp which will double the xp you get from killing mobs.

For the next part im gonna list each zone, and give a little discription and a rating for Quests, 5 man Dungeons, looks and zone overall.

Hellfire Peninsula: The first zone you head into, my first impressions WOW (not WoW :P). You go through the portal and you see a gigantic boss being fought off by alliance and horde. The zone itself looks awesome and really makes you feel like you are headed into a demon infested, war ridden realm. It makes you fly across the map to your post, and you get great views of the zone. The quests link well and are fun ranging from a bombing run where you fly on a mount and bomb people below to killing mobs, to helping take down a fel reaver, a gigantic mechanical monster. The 5 man dugeons are Hellfire Ramparts, Blood Furnace and The Shattered Halls, in each you fight burning legion orcs. Each in my opinion is fun to play and shattered halls has a cool part where constant streams are running at you. The bosses arnt as good as they could have been with recycled attacks from the first WoW.

Quests: 10/10 ~~ 5 Man Dungeones: 8/10 ~~ Looks: 10/10 ~~ Overall: 9/10.

Zangermarsh: The second zone and its still looking good, its a big bog occupied by Zaga and Cenarion Expedition (who you help). It looks impressive still, tall trees, vast lakes and the enemies look great with War of the world style enemies to weird bat things. However sadly the quests even though fairly linked drag you everywhere and in my opinion are boring they are mostly kill certain amount of mob quests and dont have anyhting to surprise or entertain you such as the bombing quests in Hellfire, after doing hellfire it really is a let down. The 5 man dungones are Slave Pens, Underbog, Steam Vaults mainly fighting against naga and weird animals. Apart from Steam vaults however they are fairly boring, SP and Ubog are just like eachother and you just end up killing naga who you have fought for the most of the zone earlier.

Quests: 7/10 ~~ 5 Man Dungeones: 7/10 ~~ Looks: 9/10 ~~ Overall: 7/10

Terokkar Forest: This contains the main base of outland, Shattrah where both horde and alliance can go, it contains portals to every azeroth main city and is generaly the new IF/Oggrimar of outlands. Its not very impressive a circular building followed by circular walk way and a circular lower city for common NPCs, I was really let down by this city. The zone quests are quit fun, you get to fight a mixture of undead, humanoids and beasts. The 5 man dungeons are Auchenai Crypts, Shadow Labyrinth, Sethekk Halls and Mana-Tombs. They are a step up from Zangermarsh you fight again a mix of undead, humanoids and beasts and the bosses are mostly interesting and different enough to make you not seem like Blizzard has lazily repeated bosses.

Quests: 9/10 ~~ 5 Man Dungeones: 8/10 ~~ Looks: 6/10 ~~ Overall: 7/10

Nagrand: Also known as STV 2.0 to WoW players. Its really just a boring version STV (a zone in original WoW) its starts off by having to kill 180 mobs, you then have to continue on with more boring quests that follow on like this, the only exciting part about htis zone is the middle PVP bit where you fight to control a small stronghold. There are no 5 man dungeones here and its prett yplain boring look of lots of grass and a tree here and there. The only good part is that you can skip the zone and still get to 70 by the time you finish quests.

Quests: 5/10 ~~ Looks: 6/10 ~~ Overall: 5/10 .

Blade's Edge Mountain: This zone is a mixture of ogres, humanoids and weird new monsters such as flayers. Its a very harsh land in terms of looks, but is well down. The quests are great fun and you get to go to a goblin stronghold and mess around with gadgets and fun missisions which fire you half way across the map. After nagrand you really do feel like you are in heaven. There isn't any 5 man dungeons again, but the quests are fun enough to keep you going.

Quests: 9/10 ~~ Looks: 8/10 ~~ Overall: 8/10

Netherstorm: By now you will be getting close to 70 and maybe this will help you push through this zone. THeres a wide variety of quests but after spending time doing around 500 other quests it starts to get old. If you count the zone by itself though the quests are varied, undead, the legion, humanoids, beasts pretty much a bit of everything, you even shut down some big machines and buildings. It looks good as well with big buildings rough land and a ghost feel to it. The 5 man dungones are The Mechanar, The Botanica, The Arcatraz. You mainly fight mana machines and some weird inventive bosses such as a gigantic tree. It provides more of a challenge than other 5 man instances and is great fun.

Quests: 9/10 ~~ Looks: 8/10 ~~ 5 man dungeons: 9/10 Overall: 9/10

Shadowmooon Valley: This is the last Zone and by now you should be 70 and really only doing htis zone for money, sadly because you arnt getting xp it makes it even more boring than usual and this zone isnt anything special in the first place. Nothing new, boring mob killing quests and nothing really special. Its more of a challenge than the other places but the looks arnt anything new either. Pretty much boring, but stilll not as bad as nagrand. There are no 5 man instances.

Quests: 6/10 ~~ Looks: 7/10 ~~ Overall: 6/10

Overall in terms of PVE the game is excellent, once you get past leveling there are 25 man dungeon raids which will keep you entertained forever. This game is really more PVE than it is PVP.

~~~~PVP(player vs player)~~~~

With this game Blizzard added a new PVP system, pretty much ALL the pvp is involved in instance based pvp. There are 4 different types, Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, Warson Gulch and Eye of the storm (new with TBC). There is some world PVP which is outside instances but its mainly just capturing towers. Except in Nagrand where you have to kill guards and occupy the town this is the greatest part of the game in terms of PVP.

Eye of the Storm: You have to capture towers, as well as a flag in the middle. Its 15 v 15 and games can last up to 20 mins. In my opinion its boring and repetitive and really blizzard just mixed Arathi Basin and Warson Gulch together. Very boring and inoriginal idea.

The pvp gives you honor points which you spend for armour, it takes no skill to get as even if you lose you still get points. This has really ruined the game as everyone is walking around in epic gear ( gear with amazing stats) and doesnt differentiate the skill between the people. PVE gear suffers as a result as its a lot harder to get yet of the same standard.

Overall PVP is very boring.

OVERVIEW: PVE is the main extent of the game, it takes dedication and time, once you get past leveling its an amazing experience but some of the zones used to level are boring and repetitive and dont look that great. PvP is disapointing its not hard and not original and is INCREDIBLY boring and repetitive.

GAMEPLAY: PVE: 9/10 PVP: 5/10

-------------------Lastability------------------- ---------------

This game will last forever, the blizzard team continously update the game fixing bugs, adding new content. The only downside is that TBC itself really is only going to last until the new expansion. Then it will only be something you buy to level from 60-70

WoW in general : 10/10 TBC: 7/10

-----------------------FINAL WORDS -------------------------------------

A long review I know, but it really is a big game and a big addition. Its hard to reccommend it as it will take over your life if you get addicted. However if you like games and you havnt experience it you are missing out. If you already have WoW TBC is a must buy, you cant play without it anymore else you will be left behind. Its a good addition, but I dont think it was needed, they could have just kept adding content but not forced you to level another 10 levels and waste even more time. They are doing it again as well for the next expansion. On top of this PVP is ruined and this is why i am only giving the expansion a 7/10. If you count it as apart of WoW as a whole its still a 9/10 wow probably being a 10/10 before this.

OVERALL RATING: As an expansion, 7/10 As a whole with WoW 9/10.