Sinatar is right in saying the balance of the game is broken about halfway through due to the availability of overpowered dragon PCs. However, if you like games where your party eventually becomes godlike, you won't mind.
Not being able to create your entire party right from the start is not a big deal in my mind. Seems weird at first if you grew up with the Might and Magic series, but they give you a lot of options. Typically you can recruit at least two members of a given class or race. And there are more classes/races than their are party slots.
Might and Magic VIII got pretty poor reviews on release for a few reasons. First, reviewers were upset that they used the Might and Magic VI engine again (two years later) for Might and Magic VIII without modernizing it (funny how new game engines for sequels was an expectation back then). As such, the graphics were really dated in 2000. However, in 2012, everything from 2000 looks really dated, so this is no longer a big issue. The game was also released with substantial bugs (again, in 2000 critics actually expected competency). Most of these bugs have been fixed by patches and fan patches.
The difficulty, shorter length and race imbalance when compared to Might and Magic VI and VII are the real negatives. Some of that is counteracted by the novelty of using monster classes. If you like Might and Magic VI and VII, you will like VIII. Maybe not as much, but it still has the same gameplay conventions and sense of exploration. Some people actually prefer it to Might and Magic VII.
pathetic
