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This review is mostly for board game enthusiasts who have never played Gloomhaven board game before and would like to try the digital, as I was one of them.
You can find my thread on Steam Community asking about it. I agree with what people have said in that thread by the way.
If you're into board games, you must have surely heard about Gloomhaven. Always on top at BoardGameGeek, and you probably have wondered "what's all that hype about it?", as I have in the past. It's a game that my group and I have been contemplating about buying it, but it's quite expensive and it's a "legacy" board game(for those who don't know; legacy board games are supposedly the games you can only play once), so we were never sure if we should invest our time and money on a really expensive board game. After all, we've been told that there's a campaign and once you finish it you're done. So, I was skeptical. When the digital first came out, we wanted to buy it but there weren't many positive reviews back then. So we gave it a couple of months and we purchased it.
First of all, it is very well made. A friend of mine has a review here, calling it "The Elden Ring of Board Games" which is quite accurate. Every aspect of the board game is very well thought, we always feel amazed when we finish a dungeon. It has really low RNG, you have to strategize as a a team to complete the dungeons. It does require thinking and strategizing but not to the point that you would feel overwhelmed, at least if you're an experienced board game player. If your board game experience is limited to Monopoly, this game WILL feel overwhelming, the mechanics might be strange to you, so keep that in mind. I mentioned above that it's a legacy game, but honestly its campaign does have replay value, considering that you have multiple characters to play with. Besides, the campaign is not something you'd be done in couple of days, if that's your impression. Digital is obviously faster than the board game, I've got 40 hours played on Steam and that's only 27 scenarios in one campaign, and we play REALLY FAST. There are 95 scenarios in one campaign. Each scenario (I called them dungeons above, same thing) is very well adjusted to the point that when we win it (you lose too, but not to the point that it breaks your game or sucks the fun out of it), always win it by a hair. You find yourself immersed in the campaign, as you level up and improve your character by getting perks, new items, new action cards, upgrades to cards etc. And there are plenty of characters to play, so in one campaign, the game eventually makes you retire that character and pick a new one, which somewhat adds a replay value in the very same campaign.
Boardgame itself is an EXCEPTIONAL game, so what about the digital? Honestly speaking, this might be the only game I'd prefer playing the digital over the tabletop version. Not that the board game is bad, far from it, it is just too much work. The setup takes a lot of time, it requires a lot of attention to follow the game and the combat, the perks, calculating everything correctly, you get the idea. This becomes especially overwhelming if you're kind of the GM, which means you know the game best thus you must follow everything so that a more casual player or a new player doesn't mess up. If you really want to see what it looks like, try Youtube or even better, the versions on Tabletop Simulator. Even scripted on TTS, it's a pain in the butt. The digital takes away all that "chores" away and lets you just play, without doing all that work. You can find other people saying that setup itself is a big darn chore. I kid you not, there are people I see online selling their tabletop copies because they can play digital now. Another thing I liked about the digital was the tutorials. Most digital board game tutorials (this is not exclusive to board games, even AAA games now lately) make you do stuff but you don't really understand why you're doing that particular action. You finish that tutorial and you have ZERO knowledge about the board game and just are confused. Not in Gloomhaven though. Gloomhaven's tutorial teaches you the mechanics pretty good and it makes you learn via giving you puzzles, letting you to figure out how the game should be played in that particular situation. Tutorial is relatively long but I suggest you do everything if you've never played before. I was told in that Steam thread I mentioned above I'd need some extra knowledge on the rules, tactics, monster AI, aside from the tutorial and they were right. If you like the game, that won't be a problem at all, to put in some research. Digital has good friendly UI, which is a must of a game of this caliber. Graphics are pretty, and immersive enough for a board game and I like playing it.
If you're planning to play it as a board game group, I say go for it, you won't regret it. As a solo player you can have fun, but controlling 2-3 characters will be exhausting and tedious. In my humble opinion, it's really entertaining as a shared experience. And you cannot soloqueue to play with other people (It's not like Catan, you cannot play with some randos), that's something must be told, thus you cannot just buy the game and join someone's session (it requires invites or session codes to play multiplayer). However I'm sure there are people on forums looking for players online. In conclusion, my suggestion is to buy it as a group to play with friends.
10/10, truly the best digital board game experience I've ever had. A complete board game. A beautiful digital adaptation.