Ok forgotten realms really never interested me before. It basically killed a ton of sacred cows, and a lot of characters that I despised. Setting wise I like what I see.

However that being said it has all the weaknesses of 4th edition to hold it back. If you don't like 4e you won't like this one.

I think the 3E FRCS is by far a better book all around, but the setting itself is rather generic.

This "book" was a waste of a tree. No Anaroch?? Give me a break! Hey Wizards of the Coast, you have successfully killed D&D with 4.0 and ruined a perfectly good campaign setting. Whats next? You gonna bring back Dark Suns and piss all over that???

Well i'm not a supporter of the new dnd 4th edition. But aside from that I checked out this book and read it quite throughly. It's not so bad, BUT it lacks all FR atmosphere. basically the FR is all about high level gaming and NPC's. Come on I mean elminster, simbul, etc. But now poof all gone. Now as for myself I never liked how the FR was so magic oriented and well frankly it had a magic arms race going on over there, BUT that was the FR like it or not. So basically this ripped the whole heart out of the setting and replaced it with a weird jarvic artificial heart, which well doesn't work really. Just don't use it, keep the old FR setting book from 3.x. You'll do a lot better that way.

This book, like any book redefining a well-loved and followed product is torn between keeping the good of old, and finding its own voice.

It absolutely found its own voice. The merits of that voice are, to say the least, questionable. The redefined realms could just as well be any of a huge number of more or less indistinguishable homebrew worlds.

As for keeping the old, the Spellplague might as well have been called Armageddon. Some of the names remain the same, and you might even run into a few "familiar faces", but the entire setting has changed so much that these seem to be anachronistic throwbacks, rather than reminders of old.

As for the book itself: Quite gutsy, starting off with an adventure. Very time-oriented, very much in what seems to be 4th Editions "ready to go right now" philosophy. Kudos for seeing it through with such consequence. If only the adventure had felt less like generic filler, this might have been easily another star. Production values are good, too. All in all not the best deal, but there is worse in the RPG market.

WOTC has recently made many questionable decisions regarding its D&D franchise, but most have at least some semblance of justification given by a 4th edition fanboy. However, this product lacks any soul, has poor production quality, and completely rewrites the history of Forgotten Realms to justify the new magic system of 4th edition.

Gone are the great characters such as Manshoon of the Zentarium and the Red Wizards of Thay. Gone is the Hosttower and practically every Wizard kingdom. Enter monolithic evil forces all worshiping bane. Enter ignoring over 120 books of source material over 30 years. Enter removing some of the most loved NPCs of the Realms such as Elminster with two sentence explanations.

Frankly, this product ended all fleeting loyalty I have for WOTC. I will never again play another game set in Forgotten Realms or buy a computer game based on this setting.