I looked forward to this with much hope as Titan: The Arena is an excellent game worthy of staying in print. However, Fantasy Flight really dropped the ball on this with respect to the poor quality of the components.

First, while the original game included one of the best examples of how NOT to write intuitive rules, this version doesn't do much better. They are better written but omit several key things that would make this more difficult for newer players to pick it up.

The rules also come on some of the thinnest paper available. After only a single play, our copy was already showing major wear.

The cards themselves are not coated, or very poorly so if they are. They feel very fragile and clearly will not stand up well over repeated playings.

However, much worse than the quality of the stock of the cards is the absolute disaster regarding the new look of the cards. Take a look at a screenshot of the original game. While it may look dated, the cards all were clearly unique and clearly stood apart so that one character and his card were instantly discernable from any other character.

That is not the case here. The cards are extremely similar in look and in average lighting tend to all blend together. New players will be overwhelmed with confusion trying to differentiate between the cards. This also explains why, suddenly, players on other forums are asking for input on what to do when creatures die. In the original, it wasn't a big deal. Here it leads to players playing cards to the wrong creatures necessitating removal of all cards of the dead creature.

Even worse is the state of the Spectator cards. This is probably the most confusing element for new players. In the original version Spectator cards were also completely different in appearance from the creature and combat cards. Here the main difference is that instead of white trim around the creature's name, it has yellow trim.

In our group several players (including one seasoned player) kept discarding valid spectator cards believing they were optional creature cards not represented in the current game.

The only improvement I find is in the tokens which were of the lowest possible level in the original and nearly impossible not to improve upon here.

For seasoned players, this version adds some nice new options and makes the game available at a reasonable price again, but not at the level it deserves. For new players, best of luck. Your climb to comfort with this game will be much harder due to these poor choices than what it could have and should have been.

I would give this an even lower rating but the game itself is easily a 4 so that helps offset the poor quality here.