What were your expectations for Heroes 4?

I was expecting the fourth installment to be a continuation of the third (as I think most people were), with improved graphics, gameplay, and a continuation of the campaigns, etc. But what came out was something completely unexpected (not entirely, but it was hard to understand at the time), in terms of how different it was from the third game. We played the fourth game in pretty much the same way as the third, not even knowing that the progressive part of humanity considered it a rare piece of garbage and "not heroes at all." But somehow, it was still... we played it, and then we went back to playing the third. So, it turned out to be just a few months of entertainment (as a change of pace)? But it turned out that later on, I also played the fourth game quite a bit (not just a little). And even now, it seems like all the doors are open – here's Warlords, the third, the fifth... but I still want to play the fourth.
Conclusion: I didn't get what I expected, but it still turned out to be a separate game, a good and original one, a new branch in the development of the series. And I think that's a good thing.
But some of the new features just ruin the experience: why, for example, do monsters move across the map so much slower than black dragons? And there are many other such moments.