I'm liking it for a whole different reason than expected. And I would caution anyone that if you play this thing like I do, it's going to cost you. I'm now putting my budget of ~$20/mo for this game mostly into the Spire in my biggest city. I spend diamonds to push troops through specifically for the Spire as well as for reducing cool-down times on the gates so I can use my time boosters for regular game play/events/etc. I don't buy magic bldgs (yet; I could change my mind in the future) and I've bought all the premium expansions I intend to buy in that city as well. I'm looking at the Spire as sort of a separate mini-game I play just to see if I can beat it there.
Though I started out this game not fighting at all, I eventually came around and actually like the fights. Huge surprise; never played any kind of combat games. That may be an advantage as I don't have anything I can compare to the battles in this game. I ended up looking at it as a very complicated form of chess; yeah, I know.
at myself, lol. But the general province and tournament battles have become repetitious. I like trying out different troops on manual, but it takes forever, so now I mostly auto-fight on the map and tourneys.
So, I like the challenge of the different composition of enemy units in the Spire. I also like the challenge of the multi-wave fights; whole new twist there. And with 4 chests between gates, I have the time to manually fight everything as long as I schedule myself properly. I have now successfully finished it in my Constructs city for the 3rd week in a row. I play through the 2nd boss in my other (Woodelves) city. Started playing it just through the 1st gate or 2 there for the mystery chests, but as I get better at the fights from doing more in the bigger city, I've stretched a bit in the smaller one.
My primary reason for playing is NOT the rewards. But I've noticed I'm having less issues with keeping CC spells in stock in this city. I have 2 full sets placed in my city (one is a temp use of available space) with at least one more full set in inventory. Additionally, I have enough gumdrop and mana trees in inventory to build a forest. I have 1 Genie placed; 3 in inventory. I have 3 Dwarven Armorers (last week I was doing a happy dance when I finally got my first Dwarven Armorer; this week I got one in each of the first 2 mystery chests I opened early in stage 1, go figure). I have not gotten a Trading Station yet, and I didn't get any of the magic bldgs that just came out this week either. So, though I don't play it for the rewards, it looks like the available prizes do come if you play it consistently.