Heroes of a Broken Land suffers from the age old design curse of not quite being sure exactly what it wants to be, do or specifically appeal to. In their individual parts, each "genre" of the game presented here is average at best - the options and classes in combat are reasonably limited, and you'll find yourself performing the same actions over and over again, with the exception of using particular types of magic against particular enemies.

Dungeons are procedurally generated, giving "limitless" adventure, but lack any real depth or charm - you'll see the same few traps, the same secret button in the same spot on the wall in each of the dungeon types. Within a few hours, I felt like I was treading the same ground over and over. I'm all for a "retro" presentation, but combining that with a retro interface that can't be scaled for modern resolutions that requires multiple, often unintuitive clicks to get things done wasn't the wisest of design choices.

The overland map lacks any sense of direction or purpose. There didn't seem to be any competitors or threats, even on the harder difficulty levels - meaning having things take "turns" on the map didn't make a whole lot of sense - if I acquire gold each turn and need X gold to hire a hero, buy something or build something, there's nothing stopping me from just clicking "next turn" until I have the required resources.

Maybe this penalises a "score" count at the end - I don't know, I'd lost interest by the time my characters were level 12 or so, and felt no real impetus to continue.

HOaBL is far from the worst in its class, but it's certainly not worth the $15 asking price. Pick it up on sale for ~$5 if you're bored, otherwise give this one a miss.