 2008-11-10 - Players Guide for Forgotten Realms
A must have for playing in the Living Forgotten Realms. Swordmages are pretty dang cool. Much more helpful than the DM's guide. Some extra feats for core book characters, so at least another staple to have on the shelf.
 2008-11-03 - Lots of crunch. Little fluff
The player's guide is the second part of WOTC's re-introduction of the Forgotten Realms. It follows their new marketing paradigm...lots of mechanics, but little substance and flavor. Granted this book is for the players. The GM is recommended to buy the Campaign Setting. The mechanics are good. I like 4e mechanics, but I am not a fan of the big font, white spaces, and low page count in these books.
2008-11-02 - A good addition to any D&D 4e game
I wasn't really sure whether I wanted to buy this book, since I have never run or played in a Forgotten Realms campaign. However, after previewing the book at a local store, I decided that the book had enough generic or easily-adaptable material to enrich my homebrew campaign. About 1/3 of the book provides a player's-eye "tour" of the various regions within the Forgotten Realms. This information is indispensable if you're playing in the (4e) Realms. The new classes -- swordmage, and the dark pact for warlocks -- and races -- drow and genasi -- can easily be incorporated into any campaign setting, as can at least half of the paragon paths, feats, and rituals. A subscription to D&D Insider will get you the same information in the D&D Compendium, but I like having physical books on my shelf as well. A must-have for playing in the Realms; nice to have for other D&D campaigns.
2008-10-29 - Good Supplement
This is a good supplement. The new Swordmage class, as well as the Drow and Genasi races, make it worth the money spent. Also some of the feats are pretty good as well. Nice addition to any D&D campaign even if you are playing in the Forgotten Realms.
 2008-10-28 - Short of its full potential
Seems a lot of reviews have been done on this product already. I'll just add my 2 cents to this. Firstly, I agree with some of the other reviews that the suggested retail price for this product is a complete rip-off, I'm glad I bought it at discount from Amazon, if you have to have it, try used or some shops that gives big discounts, you'll feel better after that.
Overall the book has been short of its full potential, I might even say a tad disappointing. Compared with the 3.5 edition of Players Guide to Faerun, the information in this 4th edition version is quite limited. To someone who has already played 3.5 D&D and in the FR world, then there isn't much meat in it. There is only one new character class the Swordmage, which is quite good I might say that 2 of my players immediately killed off their characters to make a new Swordmage character!
After the first 50 pages or so, the book kinda goes downhill. They added the Spellplague multiclass option, if you're like me and a former 3.5 player, then you won't be interested in this. Multiclass in 4th ed bites - but that's a whole other topic.
The second half of the book is mostly detail on the world, again albeit on a different player's angle compared to the Campaign Guide. Now they could have skipped a lot of this, it is boring and unnecessary. In fact they could have made just one book.
The individual artwork is good, I don't remember noticing any repeat art from older books. But the quality is just not as good as any 3.5 books, I liked that the older books had thicker paper, and the pages were designed to look worn and that was unique. In fact the entire 4th edition series I think reminds me of school textboooks in terms of print quality and overall design.
Overall, a useful book if you want the new class details or some new feats. Otherwise, skip it or buy 2nd hand, I certainly felt that it is lacking.
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