Heartlake City Playground

"A genuinely fun, play-packed Friends set with a heartwarming origin story, the Heartlake City Playground earns a BrickScore of 78.6 and Recommended status. Owners rate it 4.67 out of 5 across 96 ratings, though the $39.99 price tag drew consistent pushback from critics who felt the part count did not justify the premium."

Both expert reviewers celebrated the Heartlake City Playground as a long-overdue, genuinely playful Friends set with a charming backstory: it was directly inspired by an 8-year-old fan's contest-winning design, and the designer Sienna was immortalized as a minidoll. Brickset and JANG agreed on the wealth of play mechanisms (swings, carousel, seesaw, climbing wall, slide, monkey bars), while critics diverged on value. Owners rate it well at 4.67 out of 5 across 96 ratings, though only 80% would recommend it, and the LEGO-site value signal (3.5 out of 5) reflects the pricing concern experts raised.

Where they split: Both reviewers recommended buying, but Brickset was notably more critical of the price-to-value ratio (scoring value at 42 out of 100) while JANG was more enthusiastic overall. One LEGO.com owner rated the set 20 out of 100, citing a bland play structure and insufficient figures, which sits sharply below the expert consensus.