5 stars, because while nothing is perfect, the editors allow 5 for "nearly perfect"....

My son acquired this game which we played at recent birthday game party for him, and it is one of the best board games I have ever played in 60+ years of loving board games. The premise is actually quite simple: Disease is breaking out in major cities around the earth, and each player has an assigned role (scientist, medic, etc.). Can you help cure one of the diseases (unnamed, but represented by a color) before it becomes a pandemic and you lose?

Action is quick as you fan out on a mercator-style projection map of the world to perform your role's task with help from the other players. You ARE ALL dependent on each other. One of the things I like about the way it is designed is to see the number of links between cities. For example, Hong Kong lets you go to a lot of places, but the rise of an infection there quickly spreads if you are not prompt and careful. Chicago, not so much, and in this kind of detail I think the game resembles the real infection threats of today.

Each of the roles is thought out, and other raters are correct - if you don't think you have anything to do, you are probably pursuing an incorrect strategy. Time is of the essence, and this makes playing the game fairly quick and intense. If you don't resolve it soon, you'll be defeated by the bugs.

This is a game that can be widely used on retreats, particularly by NGOs, where people are being assembled because their organization needs them to come to trust each other and participate in team-building. This game is ideal, I think, in getting people to all think on the same page, so I'm getting copies to give to some organizations I know which have periodic retreats! conducted after they've acquired new members who don't know each other yet.

It's easy to learn, but subtle to play, and calls on skills that help me realize, as the song has it, I'm Not Dead Yet. One confusing thing: my son's version has 5 roles (pawns) and all the reviews and game data say 4 roles. This is important because we found that the fifth player greatly enhances the experience of the game and makes the cooperation even harder but better. Can anyone enlighten me as to what the current version really provides?

Pandemic does have some similarities to Shadows Over Camelot, but doesn't feel like the same game. In Pandemic every turn matters, a lot! It doesn't take too long to play, so as soon as you're done you want to play again (especially if you almost won, but not quite). Pandemic is tremendous fun for 3 or 4 players, but is also a wonderful two player cooperative strategy game, great for when you don't have a big group around. I highly recommend Pandemic for families too, from about age 9 up. Definitely one of our favorites.

When you finish playing a game, and the group of players immediately starts discussing "OK, next time we have to try..." you know you have a winner.

With Pandemic, you have a definite winner.

I've been watching Z-Man's site for months waiting for this game, being a fan of cooperative games in general, and snatched it up the day my FLGS got it in stock. Along the way, I started hoping that I wouldn't be disappointed by my own anticipation, and I was not.

The biggest complaint I can think of about this game is that the pieces are slightly too big for the size of the board. Atlanta (where all the players start) was very crowded when we started the game, especially since it also started with two disease cubes.

One thing you will quickly learn about this game is that every action is precious. If a player is left with "I have nothing to do with the rest of my turn," it probably means there is a hole in the group's strategy. There are only 25 turns (26 in a 2- or 4-player "Heroic" game) maximum, due to deck size, and there is a whole lot to accomplish in those turns. So plan your strategy very carefully.

I cannot wait to try playing this game again.