* FridgeBrilliance: A lot of this book is fairly straight High Fantasy good vs. evil. Just like the original Warcraft 2. Nothing wrong with that. A great deal of the book's best parts come from the fact that the Orcs will ultimately become heroes ''in spite'' of everything everything accomplished here. Furthermore, [[spoiler: Damn near every good guy and their nation suffers a horrific end or FateWorseThanDeath]].
* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: This book serves as a moderately entertaining, if somewhat bland, retelling of Warcraft 2. The book that retells WC2's expansion pack, ''Literature/BeyondTheDarkPortal'', on the other hand, saw the addition of fan favorite author ChristieGolden and saw better fight scenes, a more intricate and interesting story and better written characters.