Icons of Play

"Icons of Play earns a Skip It BrickScore of 43.4: women's football fans will treasure the exclusive athlete minifigures, but expert reviewers found the set structurally incoherent, with a broken fan mechanism, a disconnected half-pitch layout, and design inconsistencies that leave it neither a satisfying display piece nor a functional play set."

Expert reviewers land squarely in the negative-to-mixed camp on Icons of Play (40634), with Jay's Brick Blog calling it 'a slightly incomplete and pricey package' and Brickset labeling it 'a truly bizarre set that's neither fun to play with nor attractive to display.' The core problems are structural: five disconnected subassemblies, a supporter-stand fan mechanism that barely works, and a half-pitch design that feels unfinished. Owner ratings tell a split story: Amazon buyers average 4.6 out of 5 across 77 ratings, while LEGO.com buyers sit at 3.1 out of 5 across 27, and only 58% of LEGO.com owners say they would recommend it, reinforcing critic concern that enthusiasm from fans of the sport masks real design deficiencies.

Where they split: There is a pronounced split between casual fans of the sport and expert brick reviewers. Many LEGO.com reviewers who are women's football fans rated the set perfect scores, while the two dedicated brick reviewers (Jay's Brick Blog: 60, Brickset: 25) found the design decisions baffling. The Amazon average (4.6) versus the LEGO.com direct average (3.1) and the 58% would-recommend rate show the same fault line: sport fandom drives enthusiasm that the set itself does not fully justify.