Heroes of Might and Magic V Previews

Both IGN PC and Yahoo! Games have conjured up their own hands-on previews for Ubisoft and Nival's Heroes of Might and Magic V. A snip from IGN PC's article:
Many of the units have special abilities as well like the griffin that can do a sky dive attack without fear of retribution or even various spells. But the big power comes from those heroes. The funny thing about the heroes is that they don't sit on the actual grid of combat and can't effectively use melee attacks on any enemies. Instead, they're relegated to casting spells and using various abilities. Any siege weapons the hero has purchased will sit back along the back line with the hero as well. Balistas will fire missiles, camps will heal damaged units and catapults will knock down walls when besieging an enemy city.

And a snip from Yahoo! Games' article:
Your hero -- and eventually heroes -- will be trotting around the countryside, visiting locations on the map, fighting neutral creatures, and eventually other heroes. Like the previous games, the strategic maps are absolutely crammed with things to do and places to visit. It's like a great big colorful box of fantasy candy. Go here to get treasure, go there to improve your stats, and go yet somewhere else to recruit new creatures. There are seas to cross in boats and even underground dungeons on split level maps. One of the multiplayer games has obelisks that let you assemble pieces of a map. This will eventually reveal the location of a great artifact (the Tears of Asha, which figures prominently into the single player campaign) that unlocks a unique and powerful building for your city.