The story in Game of Thrones is its main strength and weakness. It's a strength because with fixed characters, Cyanide was able to link the past and present together to give events more depth, and they also did an excellent job of giving you motivation to kill the bad guys. I can't remember the last time I played an RPG and wanted to kill the last boss so much. But in order to present the story coherently, the campaign is completely linear, your actions don't change much, and Cyanide tried to keep things realistic. For example, you never go into a basement to defeat rats, and when you enter a town, you don't meet two shopkeepers, five peasants and 4,862 bandits. You only encounter enemies that make sense, but as a result, unlike most RPGs where the ratio of battles to dialogue is at least 2:1, in Game of Thrones it's just the opposite, and the script and acting aren't good enough to support that kind of focus. And because of the frequent conversations and your only minor impact on them, it often feels like you're watching a game rather than playing one.

[...] Finally, Game of Thrones doesn't rate highly in the bells and whistles department, either. The graphics are mediocre at best, and there is too much repetition. You visit the same maps over and over again rather than getting to explore new places, and way too often NPCs wear the same clothes or have the same faces, or both. The acting is also subpar. The actors all read their lines clearly, but they rarely act them or seem to know what the context is. But on a positive note, Game of Thrones didn't crash on me even once during the 30+ hours I spent playing it, which has to rate somewhere around "minor miracle."

When I started playing Game of Thrones, I disliked it considerably. It starts out slowly (it takes about a half hour to wade through the initial conversations and tutorials to begin playing), it has a clunky interface, and it's lacking in polish and charm. But then the more time I spent with it, the more I got used to the game mechanics, and the more I got interested in how the story was going to turn out. And so now it's a tough call for me whether I'd recommend the game or not. If you just want to play an RPG where you kill stuff and the cut scenes are minimal, then Game of Thrones definitely isn't for you. But if you're like me and you're a fan of the Martin books and the HBO series, and you don't mind a game with a slower pace, then Game of Thrones might have just enough going for it to make it a worthwhile purchase.​