Hello everyone! I just wanted to get some people's perspectives since I feel like I read the books in isolation often--in that only a few of my friends DM and we don't necessarily have the time to look TOO closely at them, though we do read through them. I'm curious about others who might have spent more time comparing specific monsters and stat blocks. By and large I prefer the new art direction in the 2025 Monster Manual, but how are we feeling about the stat blocks? (Again, I feel positively, and then I saw someone say they wouldn't be using this book, so I wanted some perspective!) 

Better, more stat blocks, better balanced with low level monsters toned down a little and higher level ones pumped up. It's not perfect, but its definitely an improvement. Ultimate tip, if you have both..... use both as needed.

I like it. As Aquilontune said: Better balance overall. I could have stood to see a bit more innovation in monster actions, but they were stuck with backwards compatibility. They couldn't change monsters too much or the CR would change making it difficult to use old modules. I also would have liked to see a section on adding species templates to the "humanoid" NPC stat-blocks.

Other than those quibbles, I really like it. 

And the art! They knocked it outa the park with the art! Easily the best monster depictions/artwork of any of the monster manuals ever (And I have played/owned them all).

There are aspects I like, and aspects I don't. Two things I sort of dislike

1. All the melee or range abilities; if you can get up close and personal to the ranged foes, or stay out of reach of the melee foes, you should get some benefit.
2. The way spellcasting was done. You can simplify spellcasters without making them work totally different from PC spellcasters -- just only list their primary combat spells. I think I'll talk about that in a separate thread, though.

Overall, better, bigger, beefier.

I do have issues,  Jt they are things that are particular to the way I run an original world.

Disappointed by the quality of spellcasters, but I've given up expecting better anytime soon. Overall I think the overhaul is a net gain, although I really wish they'd added a lair specific legendary action for the higher tier lair monsters rather than just adding another repetition of an existing legendary action. Also a bit disappointed by the quality of the lore; I understand the idea behind trying to be "setting neutral" in broad products, but at the end of the day I'm not convinced giving fewer detailed roleplaying prompts across the core 3 books of a roleplaying game is a constructive path for helping people new to the product do more than create a collection of stats, features, and items on a sheet.

Thank you everyone for your responses! I'm happy to see that overall it appears that there is a net positive reaction, barring some suggestions and critique, which totally makes sense to me as well. I really liked the hot tip of using both manuals as needed, too. This is helpful to know and see and read--I'll keep reading if more replies come in, but thank you to everyone who has commented so far for bolstering even more excitement for me to run games in this edition!

I find it much better if you're looking to quickly throw together a balanced encounter. The art is also much more evocative and the variety of monsters across multiple creature types is great too, especially at the high end.

What I think it's missing are (1) a rough guideline for expected monster statistics by CR, and (2) guidance to build boss enemies using PC rules,  But that stuff can come after core.