The first time you try playing this game you think like: "i dont know what to do" or "this game is complicated" and you probably quit. But if you had the commitment to learn this game ur a legend.

After 1 week of playing this game i realized i wasnt good enough, because my friend did like everything on the map.
After 1 month i was more confident, but he still destroyed the AI with his midget faction.
After 6 months i realized you just need to enjoy this game and not be like a complete tryhard if you're playing local.
After 1 year i realized, that every faction my friend plays has a (for me) "bad" unit for example golems (i ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hate tanks) in academy and he tries making them viable.
After 2 years i kinda became decent at the game with the help of my necropolis loving friend (he loves tanks and it's kinda ironic that necropolis has squishy units) and i realized that every faction can be viable except Stronghold (they suck, play them migdets).

If you want fun just play academy (HoMM 5.5) and deal 60k dmg with Rakshasa rajas or the midgets (Fortress) and just tank everything away or Sylvan, where every unit is fair and balanced and you'll be fine (trust me)

If you want to suffer then play them boring orcs or demons and see how you cringe yourself away.

It's the best game of the series, if u don't want to get yourself Heroes III. It has a lot of good mechanics and factions (Seraphs best unit btw, Wraiths are bad).

At the end i would give the base game a 7/10 and HoMM 5.5 a 9/10

(The reason for that is the amount of units who are broken good or bad 5.5 did make everything like sorta balanced and fixed big problems)