While your Death Knight might be no better than any other noob in the professions, he or she will be a very powerful adversary in a fight. Death Knights are very powerful characters and will cut through quests designed for other classes of the same level with little effort. It's also easy to cut through orange level enemies without much trouble, and a number of talents that leach health from enemies with successful strikes helps keep the health bar fuller for longer than with other classes. As a result you can level a Death Knight a lot faster than other classes, and can get your Death Knight to Northerend faster than with any other level 55 character. You can argue that Death Knights are overpowered, but then again they are a 'hero' class and by virtue of that should be a stronger class than the others. It's also a good thing that they are somewhat overpowered anyway because once you get through the great Death Knight starting area that's the end of the specialized content. You'll be just like any other character in the upper 50s and if you've leveled one or more characters beyond this level you're going to have to take your Death Knight through some of the same areas you've visited before and will repeat a lot of the same quests yet again. It would probably have been better to start Death Knights off at 65 and have them just about ready for Northrend when they complete the Death Knight starting area.

This brings us to Northrend, an area inhabited by a walrus-like people, barbaric warriors, and tundra versions of some familiar faces such as murlocs. The architecture and landscape are certainly influenced by Norse legends and architecture, but this large northern continent has a variety of styles and landscapes that go beyond fields of snow and frozen tundra. It's a large landmass with plenty to explore. In fact, there are two entry points for both the Horde and the Alliance, so you can easily experience Northrend with two different characters (four if you play both sides of the fence) and feel like you're playing two different expansions. Each zone is packed with quests to the point where it will take you a really long time before you'll feel that you've "finished" the zone. There are still plenty of fetch this and kill X number of that quests, but there are also plenty of quests that put you in control of siege weapons, flying mounts, mechs, and more. These quests all make use of a control panel that appears on the bottom part of the screen that has the necessary controls to complete the quest. The controls vary from quest to quest, but the one thing that they all share in common is that they're intuitive and easy to use. These quests certainly add some variety to the repetition that is inherent in MMORPG questing. Also new to the game in Lich King is phased quests. These are quests that have a physical effect on the world around you and will alter its appearance. The phasing allows the world to look one way to players who've completed a quest and a different way to those who haven't, and is a good way to make you feel that your questing is having an actual impact on the world around you.

PvP quests can be found throughout Northrend, but the heart of the battle between the Horde and Alliance on this new continent lies in Wintergrasp. Wintergrasp is a special region that can be fought over by hundreds of players at a time in a siege/defend style battle. The attacking side has forty minutes to siege a fortress (with the help of siege engines), breach its walls, and activate a special orb that resides within the fortress. The defending team 's job is to prevent the attackers from succeeding. The large-scale battles in Wintergrasp are a blast and are the closest the game has ever come to making you feel like you're a part of the war that raged between the Alliance and Horde in the real-time strategy games that inspired World of Warcraft.

If you have a character at level 68, or one at 55 and are willing to start a new one as a Death Knight, then there are plenty of reasons for you to purchase Lich King. Even if you found yourself growing a little tired of the game, the wealth of new content will rekindle the interest you once had for the game, and will have you happily questing your way to level 80 and then hit the new raids and dungeons in search of higher-level elite gear. Lich King is an impressive addition to an already compelling game.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 95%.

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