Best Hearts Game in App Store by a tad....but

Updated March 21 - Ive played most of the highest rated Hearts games (which are only 3 stars unfortunately) in the App Store and this seems to be the best of them. Ive played over 250 full games on this app. On the positive side, the game play is fast, the UI is very good -- looks rich, but very simple and makes the cards easy to read and play. There are several color options to choose from. The AI seems to be the best of the bunch, but has one major flaw which Ill mention later. Most of the other Hearts apps are pretty easy to win 80% or more of the time, but this one is a bit more challenging -- my win % is between 55-60%. I havent noticed the scoring errors mentioned in other reviews here. The card designs are very simple and non-standard -- Just a large icon for the suit and a single number/letter for the card -- which makes it very easy to read. Its easy to make a play -- your cards are spaced perfectly and theres no worry about mistakenly playing the wrong card. Same goes with passing cards to your opponents -- you select the cards you want to pass and then double tap to pass them -- so you cant mistakenly pass one or change your mind after youve passed the first card unlike a few other games Ive played. There are 24 computer opponents to choose from and it keeps win/loss stats on them and you. It doesnt appear that they have different playing styles -- pretty much the same AI for each player.

The game has one major flaw. The opponents AI will play the Queen of Spades on the first or second time Spades is lead, even though that player has more Spades and the player is not mooning. For example, Ive seen Player A lead the 5 of Spades, then player B throw the Queen of Spades to take that trick, then Player B comes right back and leads another Spade (i.e. the 10 of Spades) on the next trick, then might play a low heart (i.e. the 2 of Hearts) on the following trick. No way hes mooning and no way any player who has played cards would play this way. This doesnt happen every hand, but it seems to happen at least 50% of the time when I dont have the Queen of Spades). I wrote the developer 2-3 months ago about this and got no reply. I wrote him again recently and have yet to get a reply. Not encouraging. Hes released other iPhone apps since and doesnt seem to be interested in fixing this.

He has put in some nice features like viewing the scoreboard during a hand, seeing the last trick played/ who played what card -- so I still have some hope and patience that hell fix the Queen of Spades flaw. When he does, Ill move my rating back to 5 stars. For now, its actually 3 to 3.5 stars, but Im putting it at 4 stars for now to give him a chance to fix it.

Buddha88 about Hearts Deluxe