For me, this program's weakness is also its superpower. You've seen the examples so you know the maps you can create are only going to look good but never great. Here's why that was a huge help to me:

I'd been struggling to draw a map for a long time, starting, stopping, restarting, procrastinating. I had kind of a writer's block because no matter what I did, the map didn't measure up to my standards. When I bought Hex Kit its best looking map was below my standards and suddenly I stopped worrying about the texture and shadow of moutains. I simply felt free to just sketch in the mountains, rivers, and other features to communicate the important information. I was done in about half an hour and it was honestly exactly all I needed. My players loved it. I got back to running my campaign. And everyone said the map looked great!

I love the way it randomizes different textures for a given terrain type, with just enough variety in desert or water or whatever to make it look interesting.

Features I wish it had:

• Horizontal hexes (flat on top)
• Grids
• Thinner (or no) hex lines
• When dragging a cliff or coast line, instead of putting up a random tile, orient the new tile to connect to the previous tile, so I can just drag along the line. (You can rotate tiles with right-click but this means about 3 clicks per tile placed.)

But mostly, Hex Kit lets you set aside becoming an artist/cartographer and quickly point and click your way to a map that tells your players where everything is and how dangerous it will be to get there. Now get back to running your campaign.

I'm on the hunt again for a new map program that will work better with VTTs and produce better looking maps, but this will stay in my toolbox for the times I have mappers block.