[moofrank]

The playing length is a bit shorter than Shannon suggests. In practice, it comes down to about 45 minutes per player. A friend of mine claims to normally complete a 2 player game in 60 minutes over lunch.

The changes from first to second edition are slight. Mostly they are tweaks in the rules to the ending. (The original game ending is included as the Armageddon variant). There are also some card text fixes, and a few balance tweaks, as well as upgraded components.

I strongly prefer this to both Return of the Heroes and Runebound. The face up cards and predictable movement give you the journey element of Runebound, and the variety of cards and items resemble the variety in Runebound---but with turns that move MUCH faster.