Hogwarts Legacy was a must-buy. Not only, because I like the world of Harry Potter but also because of the - quite frankly - absurd nonsense going on with boycotts and all the fuss about antisemitism here, transphobism there. First of all: Rowling has nothing to do with the game, so even IF you subscribed to the whole nonsense about how she's a transphobe and antisemitist and promotes heteronormativity and what not: she had nothing to do with the game and the game actually makes it a point to actually not fall into any of these traps. There are lesbian couples and the player character is constantly referred to as "they" rather then "he" or "she".

Now that we've got that rubbish out of the way, let's talk about the game.

[5/5]
The game is simply beautiful - if your machine can make it so. Anything above medium settings looks stunning and provides for fluent, yet pretty to look at gameplay. It's well done and captures the look and feel of the world of Harry Potter well.

[4/5]
While everything is working smoothly and I for one don't know where the people referring to it as Bugwarts Legacy encountered all those bugs, there are certain specific aspects in movement or targetting which I personally don't like much. The game is so much fun though, I got over it quickly and am used to it by now.

I have only spent around 21 hours in the game so far and reached about a third of the questline or so, so I might encounter stuff later on that may or may not change this evaluation.

[4/5]
Fits right into the Potter-verse. Nothing feels out of place.
I'm not giving 5/5, though, as it suffers from the same "logical errors" as the Potter-verse itself.
We can repair complete bridges and conjure things out of thin air, regrow bones, etc. but apparently in all those thousands of years of magic this and magic that nobody ever came up with a magical way of curing bad eyesight, blindness, etc. It's just tiny things and they're there from the beginning of the Potter-verse, so it's understandable the game would also include them.

[5/5]
This game has it all. Story-driven and story-rich, but boy, can you get lost in all the side quests and little tasks. And since the game world is massive, really huge, the effect of any good open world game is happening in this one as well: you lose track of things quickly by simply roaming around the vast world, admiring its beauty and finding out all the little gimmicks, easter eggs and extras. Game Design and Map Design have outdone themselves. This is fun all around, open world gaming done right.

[5/5]
Can't really find anything to complain about. There are hundreds of riddles to tease your brain, the difficulty levels feel balanced and well done. And the battles are simply EPIC. You can't overstate, how epic battling it out with wizards, beasts and other opponents is. The fights in Hogwarts Legacy are simply rewarding. Fast, action-rich, yet intuitive. The combos make sense and feel natural and self-explanatory. Even for people who so far haven't been familiar with the Potter-verse, this will draw them in. The battles feel natural and epic and the dynamics of a wizard battle really shine in the game. Never gets boring and since you have to constantly react and adapt to ever changing circumstances, there is a lot of theory-crafting and strategy involved when deciding on how to arrange your spells. Depending on the kind of shielding the opponents use you have to react with different spells to break the shields in order to best the enemy. You really can't oversell the battles. They're massive fun.

[23/25]
This is really good game. It's heeps of fun, pretty to look at and if you're a Potterhead, you'll feel right at home from the first moments on. Exploring the world of Hogwarts yourself is a lot of fun and due to the open world character you'll have enough to explore and do even long after you've finished the main quest line. There's hours and hours of content here. The price may seem somewhat high, but what you're getting is well worth it. The attention to detail, the vast game world, the effort and love that went into making this - it's well worth the price.

Hogwarts Legacy does nothing in a really new or unexpected way. It's not even very innovative. But the things it does, it does right. It's really good. I can wholeheartedly recommend it to any fan of open world games and obviously to any Potterhead.