Since the original poster didn’t make clear what would make Reforged the same or a different game, I will just outline my thoughts on the topics raised, and you will have to judge if that would constitute a new game.
Campaign: I like the story as is. I did not like the retcons done during WoW, and in fact stopped playing that game because of them. That being said, I wouldn’t mind some alterations to the story, just because I know it by heart already. It’s probably not a selling point either way though.
Some meaningful changes for me would be an additional difficulty setting, being harder than before, or some achievements which in effect would serve the same purpose. I quite enjoy the Founding of Durotar in particular, so I would love to see that campaign expanded or maybe redone to work in one mission with more natural transitions between zones.
Competitive play: I really don’t think any new additions are needed. The last few patches have shaken up the meta quite a bit, and they contained many changes I had wished for for years. I would say the game is far from perfectly balanced still, so I expect more regular patches until or once Reforged releases, and they should keep the meta fresh for a while. Also, I have always enjoyed playing goofy off-beat strategies just for the fun, so imo the meta is as stale as you want it to be.
The most likely and viable addition I could see is more Tavern heroes. Those have been the only additions to the unit pool outside the RoC and TfT so far, and everything else would show some favouritism for a race and would probably not make the game more balanced at all.
Unit Selection Limit: This is the one thing I would love to have changed. Honestly, after having played SC2, going back to WC3 outside of fun maps is rather jarring. Unfortunately, compatibility with the classic game will probably be a two-sided blade here. Cool though the idea is, it would be pretty unfair to give one set of players a superior interface compared to the rest in the same competition, and I highly doubt that the UI of the classic version can be brought up-to-date.
MAYBE this sort of thing could be enabled in a separate competitive mode or be exclusive to custom games.
This would be an actual selling point for me.
New Models: I don’t like them. At all. I have written an in-depth post about this in another thread dedicated to that topic, but the long and short of it is: The new graphic design completely wrecks all of the charm and elegance of the original and replaces it with an overdesigned mess. I will gladly use the option to play with classic graphics. I might note here that I also only played SC2 on the lowest graphics setting for similar reasons.
New Game Modes: Co-op for the old campaign, or maybe even an all-new co-op campaign would be nice, but not necessary. If the game will be compatible with old custom maps, and/or if the new editor will attract even remotely as many talented people as the old one, then there is nothing to worry about. The modding community has been releasing their own co-op versions of the original’s campaign in the last few months, and there is a reason why entire genres were spawned by the WC3 custom game scene.
As long as I can smoothly play all the excellent mobas (many of which I prefer over DotA btw), tower defences, RPGs, custom campaigns, etc. there will be nothing to worry about in this regard.
The one completely new thing I would love to see is Linux support. It has been a hassle to get the classic game to run under Linux, and every patch has been a small catastrophe in that regard. The same is sadly true for Blizzard’s other games, so I hope that they show some love to the community in this regard.
However, I fear using the launcher for all games has probably made it much more difficult for one game to support an OS without all others also doing so.
